And Miles to Go
by Seishuku Skuld
Summary: Chapter Five: Legato's mission to assemble the greatest killers on the Planet. Slash, shounenai hints, possible R rating for later chapters. KnivesxLegato. Legato's tragic life as Knives' greatest protege.
1. Dying in the Sun

**And Miles to Go…******

_Chapter One: Dying in the Sun_

by Seishuku Skuld (skuldhotohori@yahoo.com)****

Series: Trigun

Pairing: ^_~

Warnings: violence

Dedicated to: Asphodel, for her inspiration and unending well of good ideas. 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

All he had to do was close his eyes and he could remember.

He could remember the smell of the shop, the fragrant scent of wood shavings, the rhythmic scratches of the saw.  He remembered the laughter and the aroma of the stew coming from its black pot on the stove.

If he closed his eyes, he could remember further back than anyone on the tiny little planet ever could.

He could remember his childhood years, his first words and the months he spent lying in the crib, listening to soft breathing of the small body curled up beside him.  He could remember the womb as his own universe of warm darkness, he could remember the voices he heard and the slight pressure every time his mother would rest an arm about her distended belly, wishing her children well.

Even back then, when he was just beginning, his body an unformed lump of flesh, he had known he was special in some sort of way.  It never quite a conscious thought that floated through his mind, but some sort of basic instinct that had been shown him, that he was destined for great power, that he could do great things. Never when he was a child, had he considered what such power and capability would have cost him.  It hadn't entered his fragile mind, as he was being pulled from the protective embrace of his mother's womb and heard her cry of surprise, that whatever god that ruled the universe might exact some punishment on him, some penalty for the gift which had been bestowed upon him.

Never when he was a child, had it occurred to him to blame someone else.  Even with his great knowledge, his sharp intellect and his willingness to learn, he lacked the fundamentals of wisdom, the worldly knowledge and the unspoken rules that everyone seemed to abide by.  They were strange and alien to him, often undecipherable and enigmatic, until one day, with the help of his peers, he had known what it meant to be "different."  And it was that day that had changed everything, the few fateful words scornfully uttered by his peers that had set everything in motion; that had put him on the path which led to where he was now, so far away from the tiny town where his life had begun.

It was never hard for him to remember the touch, the visions, the smells of days long past, still as clear as his reflection in the mirror, as if he was peering through a newly cleaned window…still too clear, and sometimes he wished he couldn't remember so well….

Truth be told, it was a double-edged sword.  It had saved his life on countless occasions, it had allowed him to cherish the moments he loved most, the smells, the soft touches, the deep voice of the man he adored were burnt into his memory, the experiences untarnishable by neither the passage of time nor the confusion of new memories.  He was the perfect record book, written in ink, a flawless journal for his own experiences, whether they were happy and content, or horrifyingly traumatic.  He remembered the small things, every little minute detail without fail, and that in itself was something unique.  That alone wouldn't have won him what he had now, and he had that been his only gift he would have lived a rather typical life, passing his days peacefully until the day of his death.

He was both thankful and thankless for his ultimate gift, the one which had only earned him hate, fear, and resentment.  It was the sole reason for his salvation, the only thing that had made him worthy of the momentous task that had been given to him, the only token that would make him of any use in that man's eyes.  And for that purpose alone, he thanked the gods.  He thanked them for his fortune and his gift, he thanked them for everything that had happened in his life, both good and bad but especially the good.  He thanked them for his deliverance, and for finding him a place beside them.  He thanked them for his moments of pain and his few moments of pleasure, and he thanked them for his left arm, which was the second gift they had given them when he thought he had been only worthy of one.

"Thank you," he whispered in the morning, the first thing he said every time he opened his eyes to a new day.  And though his large bed was often cold and empty despite whatever had happened the previous night, he was thankful even for those few, small moments of true tenderness.

It had mostly been a quiet world he remembered when he was a child, young and naïve, and completely unaware of the world rushing by him, unnoticed by the cosmic force which would eventually uproot him and toss him into the center storm, a victim of circumstance, society, and the whims of the gods.  

With he sigh, he closed his eyes.  He sank down, his body relaxing, setting his chin to rest in his hand, as his fingers curled around a few short strands of hair, the color of what he had been told was the hue of the sea on a cloudless summer day.

*****

She had always been the center of his life.  There hadn't been a moment in time when he couldn't remember the feeling of her presence.  She was smaller than he, of dark hair but light complexion, and a sprightly way to her walk that told volumes of her abounding cheer and endless enthusiasm.  He had always felt her gazing at him with a smile, those small lips upturned in a special grin that was only for him; and even though she might have her back turned, even though she was at the opposite side of the room, she was always smiling in his mind, and in those days, she had meant more to him anything ever had.  

Her name was Ismay, and she had been his younger, but stronger half, and he had seen everything in her that he had lacked.  As a child he was quiet and reclusive, always hiding from the world only to watch it with secretive, curious eyes.  He had never felt the need to speak as a toddler, and for a period of time his parents were very afraid that he was incapable of speech.  He always let Ismay do the speaking for him, for she had been a loud baby; if she wasn't crying, then she was giggling or laughing, experimenting with words and infant sounds.  It was only during her sleep that she had been quiet, the sound of her breaths very small and quiet, only a whisper in the night, even when he was sleeping next to her.  

As his constant companion, she was always the boss, in control of anything and everything they did together.  He would defer to her decisions and her whims, whatever they might have been, and it was quite obvious who the dominant one of the twins had to be.  She caused their parents no end to trouble, whether it was sneaking into their father's shop to steal little blocks of wood to play with, or snitching huge handfuls of pie that their mother had left to cool on the windowsill.  

She was always dirty or grimy in some sort of way, it came from playing in the dusty streets, or digging for worms in the small backyard they had.  She had stains on her dress from drops of juice, or whatever had been the sauce for dinner the previous night.  She was sloppy but quick to tidy up when admonished by their mother, and she had gone through everything, everything with a smile and a small hand holding his.  

His mother was a stern woman who dressed in earthy colors of various shades of brown, always with a spotless white apron and a tight, meticulous bun holding her long, dark hair together.  She was a practical housewife, and went about her household duties in a no-nonsense sort of way.  In speaking she was terse and brief, always to the point, but also open and honest, much in the manner of his father.  She was responsible for entertaining the guests, making sure the family meals were always finished on time, cleaning the house, and raising the children.  She even made their clothes to simple and practical, and though they weren't short for money, she never bought the delicate lace for herself or her daughter, never any jewelry or other useless shows of wealth and craftsmanship, it had always been plain clothing in plain colors, nothing flimsy or fancy, and made to last for years.  

Ismay always wore a cream colored dress with a white collar and white buttons down the front, simple and otherwise unadorned.  His clothes were similar, a shirt of the same color as his sister's dress, with pants the color of brown clay.  He never went outside much, even at his sister's urging, and would only go as far as the small fence in the yard, never venturing to see the outside world, never curious to explore the neighbor's yard though he had always been watching it carefully.

His father called himself a carpenter, though it was clear by the skill and breadth of his works that he was much more-- the intricacies with which he carved and built had put him far above just a simple craftsman.  He saw very little of his father during the day, for the man was always in the shop with whatever project the rich man from the big town had commissioned, sometimes an elegantly carved armoire or gilded oaken doors.  As a young man his father had made himself famous at a furniture show, and soon all the rich aristocrats of the neighboring towns had to own something that had been crafted by Bard Thornsayer; even as the initial rush had died down, his father had enough fame to keep food on the table and the bank accounts full.  As a child, he remembered many occasions in which the mayor, or even some rich newlyweds would knock on the door, lay large sums of money on the table, and walk away a month later with a beautifully constructed, ornate cabinet.

Dinner was a sober affair at the Thornsayer household, at six o'clock sharp his father would come into the kitchen, covered with sawdust and smelling of varnish, and give his wife a light kiss on the cheek.

"What's for dinner?" 

"Whatever's on the stove," his mother would always answer with a quick smile.  "Now go clean up, change your clothes, and dinner will be ready in an hour."  Then she would turn back to her cooking, humming her favorite tune.

His father would wave at the children then, pause in the living room where he and Ismay would be playing, and ask how their day was.  Ismay would answer with whatever exciting events had happened during the day, and he would just smile as his father always bent down, one hand for each of his children, and ruffle their hair with a smile.

The meal was usually long, everyone eating slowly with occasional conversation between his parents.  His mother drilled manners into Ismay, "don't talk with your mouth full," interspersed with "don't play with you food," and "use your fork, not your fingers."  Ismay would grin and wipe her hands on her dress, before picking up the silver utensils with a reluctant pout.  

He never got scolded of course, his mother never talked to him much, and that was something that always made him wonder.  Sometimes she would look at him, wipe his mouth a little with her napkin and smile a sad, worried sort of smile that always left him feeling somewhat less of the person he was.  His mother never smiled like that at his sister, and until he knew the truth, he didn't suppose it was anything of great import.  

*****

It wasn't until he was well into six years old that he truly realized what the look he'd always seen on his mother's face meant.  Ismay had finally managed to convince him to make friends with the rest of the children in their small town.  He had consented because he had oft seen the longing look in her eyes as she gazed out the bedroom window, her small hands clutching her doll, listening to the children shout and laugh as they passed through the street below them.  At other times the children would stand on the porch, their curious eyes peering into the sitting room where he and Ismay would be playing; she with her dolls, and he usually with a book in his lap.

He knew his sister wanted to join them, the small, sweaty, laughter-filled pack of bodies, pressed together in the dusty street, a tight circle of feet kicking a small ball between them.  It was a completely different kind of world than the one in which they lived; to Ismay, the children offered her so much more excitement than his own quiet companionship.  Whenever the children would ask politely, whether or not she wanted to join their game, she would always shake her head, swinging her one dark ponytail back and forth, her hand grasping her doll tightly.  She never went with them, knowing that he was too shy to meet them, knowing there was nothing and no one else he needed other than to be with her.  In her own way, Ismay understood, in their small nighttime conversations.  They would lie together in bed and though there might not have been words that passed between them, it was an implicit understanding, because they were twins, because they'd always been together.  If he had his way, they'd lock themselves away from the rest of the world, so nothing, no matter how powerful or how far-reaching would ever be able to separate them.  But he could feel it in the way she moved and in the way she always stood by the window, her body tensed in longing; no matter how much he needed her, how much she completed him, or how much she loved and took care of him, he was not the be all and end all to her existence like she was to his.  She needed him and she needed others as well, she needed their mother and their father whose brow she kissed every evening when he would hoist her up in his arms, and ask how his beautiful daughter had spent the day.  She wanted friends, she wanted to venture out into the world and leave the safe haven of their home.

"Ismay," he'd whispered one night, "do you want to go outside and play with them?"  There was no question as to who 'them' would be.

"I'll only go if you go," Ismay replied quietly.  "You want to meet them too, but I know you're too shy.  I'll help you, don't worry."  It was one of the very few times she had been wrong about him.  She'd put her hands over his, her small fingers curling in his palm.  "If they try to hurt you, I'll protect you.  I promise."  He smiled at her in the dark and nodded, if they came tomorrow then he and Ismay would join them.  He did it for her, because he didn't want to be selfish, because he didn't want to dampen her indomitable cheer and exuberance by caging her inside the house.  

It had never occurred to him what would happen if it ever came to pass that he would have to protect her.

*****

"Excuse me, Mrs. Thornsayer, but would your kids like to play with us today?  We're playing a game of kick-ball and we need two more people."

Before her mother could answer, Ismay came bounding onto the porch, her doll left on the floor in the sitting room where she had dropped it.  She'd turned around waved to her brother.

"Come on!"

He'd put his book down, placing a piece of worn ribbon in the page he had been reading before closing the voluminous tome and putting it carefully back on the bookshelf.  

"Coming!" he called, running quickly to where the other children had already clustered by his door, a sea of dirty faces, matted hair slick with sweat from the heat of the noonday sun.  For a second he paused, almost afraid of their curious eyes as they looked him up and down, measuring his existence, judging his worth in the way that only children can.

There was a hush as they all opened their eyes wide, some mouths dropping open.  He heard his mother somewhere in the kitchen drop a plate, the china shattering with a loud clatter and an angry shout.

"Why does he have blue hair?"

He reached up a hand, tugging at the strands of hair falling near his eyes.  They were blue in fact, and never once had anyone asked him that sort of question.  Ismay had black hair, his mother and his father likewise had dark hair.  They'd never mentioned to him the color of his hair, much less asked why it was that particular hue.  He opened to mouth to reply, but realized that he had nothing to say.

"Come on, Ismay," the tallest boy said, "let's go."  And that broke the silence, as the children all turned their backs on him and filed off the porch in a great big pack, little bodies pushing past each other in an effort to be the first to reach the street where the game was about to begin.

*****

"Ismay!  Come outside and play!"

He'd sat quietly in the living room, another book in his lap, Ismay beside him with a pair of marionettes carefully crafted by their father, wooden arms and legs moving in a stately, intricate dance.  Her head snapped up at the voices, Billy, Tony, and Rae standing in the doorway, with four nearly melted ice cream cones between them.  

"Okay!"  Ismay dropped her toys immediately and scampered to the door, nearly tripping over her own skirt.  She gracefully accepted the ice cream that Rae handed her, and was about to leave before she turned around, surprised that her twin brother had made no move to follow her.  In fact, he had been sitting on the couch, unmoving, his eyes roving over the same page for nearly an hour.  

"Come on, let's go," she called back, beckoning him to motion with a wave of her hand.

He looked up from his reading, never having really been concentrating on it anyway, lost in thought.  He had been thinking that perhaps Ismay was slipping through his fingers, despite his best attempts to hold onto her.  They were a little older now, and while he did not get along with the rest of the children in the town, Ismay was loved by all, and all the boys and girls alike would come to their house often to call upon her to play.  She was the center of attention, and he at best was spare baggage, brought along, tolerated because Ismay would have it no other way, but he could see the resentment in their eyes – they would much rather leave him by himself if ever given the choice.

He'd realized from day one that it was useless to fight the other children, for a boy of his age, he was smaller and weaker than they; he had not lived a life of romping in the grimy streets or playing underneath the sun.  He was pale, his skin the color of polished ivory, turning a dark, painful pink when out too much in the sun.  While not exactly delicate, he was fragile, easily tired, easily bruised if another of the children pushed him too roughly.  

He didn't move as his sister continued to wave to him, calling his name, and urging him to come.  She never saw the cruelty of the boys, for they had taken extra pains to hide it from her; every scraped knee and purple bruise was written off as his own clumsiness, his inability to keep up, or dodge the ball whenever it went flying in his direction.

He waited for the words to fall as they eventually would, finally uttered in the presence of his sister.  He had felt their scorn, and known that they'd come this far into the house not only to fetch Ismay, but to finally say what they'd always wanted to say.

"Your brother can't come," Billy, the leader of the pack, sneered.  He was the biggest of the group, though not the oldest.  His father was the owner of the saloon in town, a large, burly, tough man that had been through many a drunken bar brawl.  It was obvious the man had passed a few physical traits onto his son; Billy was taller than everyone else by a head covered with sandy-blonde hair.  His arms were thick and already muscled, his blue shirt hanging open and flapping in the dusty wind as trickles of sweat carved salty rivers down his torso.  He was already the ladies' man, and always had several girls hanging off his arms giving him innocent butterfly kisses.  It as no doubt he had his sights on adding Ismay to his growing harem.

"He never talks.  He's a freak."  Tony was second only to Billy, younger than the leader by a year, but by no means less tough.  He was an orphan that had been taken in by the town's mayor, and with all the business the mayor and his wife had to tend to, they hardly had time to raise their adopted son.  It was all well and good for Tony, for he had grown accustomed to the streets already; it was home to him.

"He has blue hair."  Rae was the smallest, a newcomer but one that had quickly fit in.  Rae had hair the color of the darkest night, darker than Ismay's.  Rae was tiny and quick, the winner of all the races and already he was learning how to fight, his punches lightning fast and thunderously hard.  He always played lackey to Billy and Tony, following them around like a lost puppy dog looking for a master.

"And yellow eyes, like a cat."

He sighed and raised his book higher in his lap, lowering his head so that the blows might slide over his back where they would disappear into the carpet, so he could sort through them later on his own time.  His eyes fell back down to his reading, and he desperately tried to concentrate on his words:

_Near the center of the room there was a trestle table piled high with glossy apples.  An evil idea came over me—_

"Don't talk about him like that!"

"C'mon, Ismay, just look at him.  Look at his hair.  It's blue."

"Like the sky!  Yeah!  No one has hair like that!"

"I bet it's not even real."

"Stop it, Billy," Ismay's voice had gotten quiet, her voice shaking with the effort to restrain her rage.  She had her fists clenched at her side, her arm quivering as if she was a string pulled tight, desperately trying not to explode and punch all three of them.

"Why should I, Ismay?"  A rough hand lifted her chin.  "You're not very cute when you cry, you know."

"He's my brother, Billy.  My twin brother."

"Funny thing you know, you guys look nothing alike when you cry."

"Stop it!"  Ismay brushed aside the hand on her face, taking a step backwards.  Her small frame shook with fury, an anger that seemed small in front of the boys standing before her.

_…so evil it made me shiver as I smiled—and I sidled across the table.  "So you want to be a hero."_

He took a deep breath, wishing he could wrap himself in the story, wrap the words about him as a protection from other words.  If he could just roll himself up in the pages, maybe he would disappear when someone came to close the book.  Maybe if he concentrated on the words, everything else would fade away and he could be left to his own devices, free to do whatever it was he pleased, not always having his strings plucked by his sister or by the "friends" that came to drag his sister outside.

_I picked up an apple and polished it lightly…_

"Leave my brother alone!"

"See?  Even you said to leave him alone, Ismay.  Come on, let's go already.  We don't want the likes of him mixing in our group."

"Get out, Billy!  Get out right now!"

"Cut the crap, Ismay, just come with us."

"Get out!"

"He's just your brother, Ismay…"

"I said, get out!  Out!  All of you!  I never want to see any of you again!"

There was a moment of silence, broken only by the sound of Ismay's labored breathing as she tried to hold in her sobs.  

"You should go with them, Ismay," he heard his own voice say quietly, fighting for steadiness in his tone.  He blinked rapidly holding back the tears that he had already seen fall from Ismay's face.  

"Who asked you, cat eyes?   You stay out of this."

"Shut up, Tony, and get out.  I'm not playing with you anymore."

"Fine, Ismay.  Just sit there all day with him, we don't want you either."

"Don't you dare show your face at my house again," Ismay growled softly, her voice full of venom.  "If I see you again, I'll get my mother and she'll knock the lights out of you."

"Huh, we're not afraid of your mother.  Tony, Rae, come on, let's go.  It looks like Ismay likes her blue-haired brother better than she likes us."

He kept his eyes rooted to his book as he heard Ismay return to the room and sit down on the carpet.

_And now I was raining apples at him and laughing myself weak.  He covered his head…_

The first drops of his tears fell not too soon after he heard Ismay's first sob.  She sniffled, and broke down completely, wrapping her arms around her knees and rocking back and forth curled into a little ball.

"Ismay," he began tentatively, not sure quite what he had to say, but that his sister needed him by her side.

"Go away."

He stopped, his book dropping from his hands, landing on the carpet with a soft thud.  

"GO AWAY!  STOP IT!  YOU'RE ALL THE SAME!"  Ismay scrambled up, and dashed for the stairs, not caring when she tripped over her own dress as she made her way up the stairs.  She merely picked herself back up again, and continued running until she was out of sight, turning the corner.  A few moments later, he heard the slamming of a door.

"Is something wrong, darling?"  His mother had poked her head out of the shop where she had been helping their father with a particularly difficult carved statue for the Farnelli Insurance Company in the next town over.  

"No, nothing, mother," he replied mechanically, quickly wiping his tears with the back of his sleeve.  He picked his book back up, and settled himself into the couch, wishing for all the world that the thing would swallow him whole.

_…I jumped back and tipped over the table on him, half burying him in apples as red and innocent as smiles._

_*********_

"Ismay, why do I have blue hair?"  It was well after dinner and their parents had long since retired for the night, but he still couldn't sleep.  He'd lain in bed awake for a good many hours already, listening to his twin's slow and steady breaths.  The moonlight filtered in through the window, casting a silver glow about everything in the room.  His sister's hair had taken on a shine; if anything could have glowed with black light, it was the midnight color is his sister's hair.  He reached out, curling a loose strand about his fingers, marveling at its softness, so different from his own.

"I don't know," came the answer, muddled with sleep, startling him out of his reverie.  He heard her yawn and withdrew his hand quickly.

"But aren't twins supposed to look alike?"

"I don't know.  Maybe.  Or maybe it's just that you're special.  All the heroes in the stories are special.  Maybe you'll be a hero someday."

"A hero?"

"Yeah, like the kind that ride around on horses, wear shining armor, protect the princesses and save the kingdom."

"That sounds like fun."  He smiled, he'd read about heroes, and it seemed that being one didn't seem to be so bad.  "So I'll get to protect you someday?"

"Yeah, when we grow up, you can protect me."

"Okay!"  

"Then it's a deal.  Don't let me down."

"I won't."  And he made that promise, fervently, with every little fiber of his being.  He had to protect Ismay, because she was too precious to him to lose.

******

Midway, true to its name was situated halfway between the large cities of March and Septem.  It was one hundred iles from March, and nearly as far from Septem.  The town was founded not too many years after the Septem Craft Exposition, where Bard Thornsayer had won his renown.  The founders had wanted a small town, away from the ritzy, glitzy lights of Septem and the smelly, crowded slums of March.  They wanted a small town away from the ceaseless motion of the teeming cities, but did not want to forsake the multitudes of amenities that were offered in both March and Septem.  

David Harper had been one of the few that had ventured into the desert, led by what he claimed was a dream that there was water near enough to the surface to attempt to dig a well.  With a few of his good friends from both large cities, Bard Thornsayer among them, Harper and his companions set out one hundred iles from March, and began their digging.  Three months later they struck the water table, and thus it was that Midway was begun.  It was a small well they found, nothing near large enough to sustain a large city the likes of March and Septem, but it was sufficient for a hundred families or so.  A small gathering had formed when the well had been fully built, and only a few weeks after small houses had sprung up, built by the hardworking hands of friends and friends of friends of the original founders, and so within a few years the town had swelled to nearly three hundred residents.  It was a tiny place where everyone knew everyone else, where greetings and the latest gossips were exchanged at the markets, and all the wives would gather together with their children while the men played cards at the saloon.  

It was in his tenth year that everything had changed, from the quiet utopia his childhood town had been, into the nightmare that had shattered his life.  Perhaps someone had splashed their coffee over Destiny's grand plan, or one of Fate's giant wheels had stopped turning and simply rolled away.  But somehow, things took a turn for the worse.

The weather had been unusually hot for months, and while no one in the small town of Midway had marked this as a particularly noteworthy event at first, Bernard Eloise, mayor of March City and Kyle Loveless, mayor of Septem City, already had their hands full with blossoming emergencies.  The drought had gone on for nearly a year, and food supply sudden became short as crops withered and farm animals died, and soon the large cities were noticing that it had become harder and harder to draw water from the well.  Within a few months, the wealthy were stockpiling whatever they had left, buying whatever they could find from passing merchants, and the poor were in the streets, thin with hunger and dying of thirst.

The rumors had begun then, that Midway was a desert oasis, crawling with beautiful flowers, lush fruit-bearing trees, and that the entire town was covered in green forest trees, shading its residents from the heat of the twin suns, preventing its water supply from drying.  It was all tall tales, for Midway had long been the victim of overimagination and careless exaggeration, but nonetheless the talk spread like a sandstorm and the damage was already done.

To conserve its most precious resource, March and Septem desperately tried to ration its dwindling water supply.  Newspapers and radios reported hundreds of deaths of city citizens, standing in lines for hours and hours on end in the hot noonday sun, weak and exhausted from dehydration.  Already things had gotten out of control, and there was a many a whisper of the Midway Oasis, and how Harper and his friends were trying to kill everyone.

An attempt to covertly divert water from the Midway had failed already, barely yielding a trickle into their own water supplies.  To the local governments there was only one option that remained: a polite inquiry to the town of Midway.  

The messages from both cities had been delivered the same day to the Mayor of Midway's small office, completely independent of each other, each one bearing the official seal and stationery of their respective cities.  It was a small note, neither lofty nor humble, but simply requesting the aid of Midway in the use of its well to transport water to the needy citizens of March and Septem.

Midway had returned them both the same letters, a polite refusal of help, not because they were unwilling, but because it simply was not possible.  Midway was suffering from the drought as much as the other cities, and the supply the small well provided was barely enough for its own residents, certainly not large enough to sustain cities the size and breadth of March and Septem.  Midway had its own people to care to look after, and expressed its deepest regrets to the casualities of the two cities.  The letter closed with a prayer for better times ahead.

In the eyes of the residents of March City and Septem, this courteous reply had turned into a cruel, malicious answer, and the tabloids had reported this as a direct affront against the two cities, that Midway had intentionally stolen the water of the two cities and were storing it for themselves, selling the extra off elsewhere in order to increase its wealth.

Not too long after the initial gossip, mobs in March City had taken to the streets, trampling the old, sick and the weak underneath their bare feet, demanding that justice be brought upon the evil tyrants of Midway.  

"Make them give us our water back!"  Yelled the angry crowds in front of March City Hall.  The Mayor and the Police watched in horror as thousands gathered to protest, first content in reveling in their own fury.  When it became apparent that the government wasn't about to do anything about Midway, that all Eloise did was hide in his office, the mobs ransacked the building.  They rushed through the police guarding, tore down the door, and spilled like ants into the structure.  Statues fell, paintings were broken and torn, pottery destroyed as even the bricks were pulled from the façade.  Not to be appeased by this small victory, that very same day the March City rioters poured the rest of their energies into Midway, riding whatever thomases, motorcycles, or other vehicles they found in the streets.  

The attack had come suddenly in the night, and he remembered rolling out of his bed to the sound of three gunshots.  He had thrown a protective arm about Ismay's shoulder, gritting in his teeth against the pain as her frightened fingers dug into his flesh, leaving dark bruises.  

"What's that?" she whispered hoarsely, shaking with fright as she hissed the words in his ear, her small voice nearly overpowered by the sounds of the shouting in the street outside.

"I don't know," he answered slowly, but knowing that it was something terrible.  Never in Midway's few years had there been anything as loud as the mob from March City, bearing their guns, knives, and whatever petty weapons they had found at hand. 

"What in hell is going on?"  Bard had burst out of his room roaring, cocking his gun.  "What's this shit?"

Before he and Ismay had a chance to reply, their mother burst into the room with a blanket, gathering them up quickly in her arms.  "To the cellar now."  He remembered screaming as a rock crashed through the window, punctuating her words.  His mother rushed them down the stairs, carrying them as if they weighed nothing, still wrapped in the white blanket with the yellow flower print that had been their parents' wedding gift.  It smelled a little like sawdust, and a little like the kitchen; but that fragrance was soon drowned out by the smell of gunpowder as several more gunshots rung out amidst the shouts.  

He remembered spending days and days in the cool darkness of the cellar, with no one and nothing but his mother, his sister, and the small lightbulb in the ceiling.

After his mother had dumped her children into the safety of the basement, she had shut the door and barricaded it with chairs, boxes, and whatever she could find that would serve as some sort of barrier.  

"What about Papa?"  Ismay had asked shrilly, her voice on the edge of hysteria as tears fell openly down her cheeks.  

"Your father will be fine, Ismay, darling," came the hurried reply.  His mother was never one for extra words or tenderness, and so he had been left to comfort his sister.  He held her tight in his arms, stroked her lovely raven hair, murmuring soothing words to her.

"I'll be here, Ismay, don't worry.  Papa will be all right, he's going to protect us all."  

"Oh," Ismay had gasped, collapsing in his embrace, throwing her arms about his neck and sobbing into his nightshirt.  

"Yes, your father is going to protect us," his mother smiled wanly, reassuring her children as she quickly pulled more furniture in front of the door.

Sleep had been a long time coming to Ismay, when finally her wailing had stopped, she had degenerated into small sniffles, occasionally wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.  He had rocked her back and forth, as he remembered Mama doing when they were both babies, and he sang her a lullaby that he had learned as a toddler.  Finally even the sniffles had stopped, and Ismay drifted off into a deep sleep.  His mother had taken her away from him, lifting her onto the couch.

"Good boy," she smiled down at him, cradling his twin, "be strong."

"I will, Mama."

"Darling, where did you learn that song?"

"The lullaby?  I remember you singing it to me, Mama."

He remember his mother's strange sad look, and he realized that she was staring directly into his eyes, her gaze occasionally shifting to his hair, which in the darkness of the room had a sickly green glow.

"I haven't sung that song to you in nearly nine years."

"I still remember it."

"How much exactly do you remember?"

"Everything, Mama."  And that line of questioning had ended there, his mother lapsing into a deep silence, as she turned away, staring about the rest of the room.  

Finally he broke the quiet.  He couldn't hear what was going on outside, for the cellar did not have any windows, and the only source of sound was the door, which had already been blocked off.  

"How is Papa going to get inside if the door's blocked?"

"He'll be back when the people are gone, dear."

"When is that?  Who are they?  Where are they from?  What did we do?  Why are they attack—"

"I don't know," his mother had said quietly, her eyes falling to her hands, folded in her lap.  "I don't know when they'll be gone.  I don't know when your father is coming back."

"Oh," he had breathed, realizing the weight of his mother's words as if he had almost picked the hidden implications from her mind.  He thought back to the newspapers he read daily, and recalled something about a long drought, and the wells of March and Septem cities drying up.  It was that, he was certain, somehow the people had gotten angry and had come to Midway demanding water.  "But there's not enough water in the well for them, Mama."

"I know, my son, I know."

********

He didn't remember falling asleep, but he did remember waking up in the dark without a watch and without a clock, not knowing whether it was morning, late afternoon or night.  Ismay was sleeping next to him, an arm flung about his chest, her small body pressed tightly against his back.  

His mother was dozing in the chair beside the couch, her head lolling to the side, snoring softly.  He'd heard a quiet rapping on the door, and it interrupted his reverie causing him to jump in sudden surprise.

"Who's there?"  he called out.

"It's your father, son, open up."

His mother had roused herself at the sounds, scrambling to move aside the barricade.  She did it as quietly as possible, so as not to wake and upset Ismay.  She flung open the door, and in a sudden impulse that he had never seen before, his mother embraced his father, crying.

They spoke in low tones, obviously not wanting him or his sister to hear what they were saying.  From the open doorway, he could still hear gunshots, and the occasional shout, though beside that and the murmurs of his parents, he could hear nothing else.

"Things are going to be bad for the next few days, Alma."

"What's wrong?"  
  


"There's news that a new mob is headed this way from Septem."

"Oh no, you're not joking…"

He saw his father shake his head, a worried look on his face.  "This isn't just a street riot anymore."  His father didn't say what exactly the situation had evolved into, but he didn't need to be told, from the serious look on his father's face.

"Why don't we just leave then?  We can gather the children up, fire up the car, and run."

"Where to, Alma?  Where can we run?  This is the only place with water, there's nothing but wasteland for miles.  Where would we take them?"

"But Bard, the children!  This is no place for children!" his mother protested, gripping his father firmly by the shoulders.  He was frightened by the conviction in her eyes, the burning determination on her face.  It was a look he turned away from, and he was amazed at how his father held his mother's gaze, unflinching, meeting her fire with one of his own.

"This is our town, Alma.  Remember how we helped build it?  With David, Pete, and Little Freddy!  We can't abandon it now."

The inferno in his mother's eyes died at these words, and she took a step backwards, suddenly appearing tired and exhausted, nearly falling to her knees.  "How long until the fighting stops?"  
  


"I have no idea.  Perhaps days or weeks.  Either way, hide down here with the kids, Alma.  Bring everything in the kitchen and that you can.  There should be enough food and water in our storeroom anyway."

"All right," his mother sighed, closing her eyes, brushing a stray lock of hair out of her face.  She smiled up at her husband.  "I suppose we have no choice but to wait this out."

"That's the spirit, Alma."

It was the first time and the last time he'd seen his parents kiss so passionately.  It was long and silent, and when it was over, it still lingered in the air, even after they'd broken apart, even after his father left, and his mother disappeared up the stairs and into the kitchen to fetch the pots and pans, and whatever food was in the refrigerator.  

*****

Jimmy Kennet was born in the slums of March City.  He had no father he could remember, and he could only recall vague images of his mother, dirty blonde hair usually plastered to her face with mud, her gaunt face hovering over in his vision in a parody of a motherly grin, most of her teeth knocked out, her mouth a great gaping hole.  He had no clue what had happened to her, but he figured she'd met her end in a dark, smelly alleyway somewhere.  He never found her, and hadn't really cared much past the initial few days of fear after she hadn't come home.

Coret Street was one of the worst places in town, if there could have been anything or anyplace in March that was worse than any other.  There were stories, told by the crazy beggars on the street in their dusty rags, stories that March City used to be a glorious rich haven like Septem, full of the wealthy and the well-to-do, but all that had been wrecked by Devilish Max Grenadier, one of the cleverest con men ever seen on this side of the moon.  Supposedly he'd been popular amongst the citizens, and after nearly twenty years as Mayor of March City, he'd stolen nearly all the city's money and run off to the desert with it.  Searches for him had been fruitless, and there was no way for the city to raise enough money so quickly to repair its broken roads or rebuild its abandoned buildings.  That was why March was so poor, or so they all said.

But Jimmy Kennet was smarter than that, unlike the older folk, the ones with the graying hair and the ones rolling about in the street, he didn't dwell on the past.  He didn't have dreams of glory as an orphan, his happiness every night was finding a warm place to sleep away from the gangs, the groping hands, and most importantly the wind.  For the street gangs could be beaten off, and the groping hands could be kicked away, but the wind was something intangible.  It was worse than the hands crawling under his shirt, and the fists that beat him, because in the face of the wind he could do nothing, nothing but grit his teeth and bear the cold that seeped into his skin and covered his bones with a layer of frost.

It was cold at night for the homeless, without the shelter of a roof.  They were often victim to sandstorms or heat waves, or whatever the elements threw at them.  Life as a child for Jimmy, was filled with mischief, usually stealing whatever food he could from the market or from the hands of other, smaller street urchins.  He'd been turned away from the orphanage, because they were already full to bursting and couldn't afford to feed the children anyway, the street was the place for him.  He scraped by whatever way he could, sometimes even begging in the street in a tiny torn dress he'd found in a rich person's trash; he'd been told by man of the drunks that he looked like a girl, and he fully expected to use that to his advantage.

Now that he was older, it was much more difficult to masquerade as a female, but not entirely impossible.  He was thinner and shorter than most boys his age, completely hairless on his chest and his chin.  He'd been taken in by a kind prostitute not too many months after the deaths of his mother, and she'd taught him the tricks of the trade: the sultry look, the wink and the kiss to get them in bed.  In the morning, if he wasn't the violent, beating type, he'd leave some money; not much, but enough to scrape by.

He remembered her lessons well, though he couldn't quite recall her name.  He'd saved a couple of her dresses, and a few well placed bundles of rags for breasts and some of her cheap make-up had done him good for more than a long time.  A sultry smile, a wink, and a kiss were usually all it really took to get the easy prey, and when he took the men to bed, he'd beat them senseless and take whatever small possessions they had.  Of course, he hadn't escaped even from that unscathed.  He had a crooked nose thanks to Big Ben Dailey, but anything that didn't kill him only made him stronger, and Big Ben had lost much more than he had in that little adventure.

He'd been one of the first to hear when the March mobs had gone to Midway, and one of the first to set foot inside the Midway town limits, with a long knife, something he'd stolen from one of his 'clients' one night.

The drought had affected the beggars the worst in March City, for they had neither the money to buy imported water, nor the connections it took to procure the precious liquid.  Standing in the ration lines was futile, for the water ran out too quickly to satisfy all the people waiting in need.  As soon as the rumors of Midway and its water hoarding reached his ears, he was one of the first ones to fight back.

He'd seen it all, the corrupted wealthy, the greedy beggars, willing to kill a neighbor, a family member, or friend for a shot at anything that would get them out of the slums.  It was a world in which he had to eat or be eaten, competition was tough in the dark alleyways, and a day didn't pass that he could remember where he didn't see at least one dead body lying in the streets for the rats to pick on.  He'd even seen a few starving children eating flesh from the body of their comrade a few times.  It made sense, therefore, that as soon as Midway got wind of the drought, it stored water for its own citizens.  It also naturally made sense that Midway, to provide amply for itself, stole water from March and Septem.

It was unfair.  Life was unfair as he'd learned long ago, and though he didn't complain about it, he sure wasn't going to let Life slide by without fighting with everything he had.  

He'd gotten up in front of the crowds in front of City Hall, shimmied up the flag pole, and waved his arms to the masses assembled there.

"MIDWAY IS THE EVIL!"  he'd shouted, waving his hat wildly about his head.  "MIDWAY HAS STOLEN OUR WATER!  DOWN WITH MIDWAY!"

There had been immense cheering and clapping.  He had loved every minute of the look of elation on the faces of the poor beggars gathered there.  Finally, they had something or someone to fight against instead of themselves.

"ON, TO MIDWAY!"

And he had jumped off onto a stolen car, and led the masses to the town of Midway, where he was sure the change to his so-far ill fortune awaited him.

*****

It was not entirely untrue that Midway hadn't been hoarding water.  David Harper had been it coming, and had warned his good friends, those with good sense enough to listen at least, and in the Thornsayer's cellar, next to the bottles of beer and wine, there was enough water to last the family for a month, tucked away in large glass jugs, placed orderly in a dark corner of the room.  

His mother had poured him a glass of water when he was thirsty, and had poured a glass for his sister when she woke up and complained of thirst.  From then on, it was a glass of water a day, and not much more than that.  He and Ismay had understood the seriousness of the situation they were in, understood the long silences when his mother would stare off into space quietly, her mind obviously elsewhere.  He remembered the shared looks between him and his sister, her normally cheerful, happy eyes filled with fear and worry.

"It'll be all right, Ismay, I'm here for you," he tried reassuring her.

She only answered him with a small grin, a far cry from her large grins or her happy laughs.  "I know, I trust Mama and Papa, and you most of all."  She tapped him on the nose then, giggling and suddenly wrapping her arms about him in a great bear hug.

*****

Septem had hardly been able to keep to its seat as soon as word of the March City Riots reached its ears.  Septem was everything that March was not, it was glory and beauty, it was clean and beautiful and full of sparkling light, where all the March City streets were darkness.  It was filled with the wealthy and the scholarly, merchants, inventors, scientists, engineers, politicians…all of society's elite was gathered in Septem City, and even they were not immune to  the effects of the drought.

Riots had started in Septem beginning with the older school age students, mostly sons and daughters of the scholarly and knowledgeable, but soon spread to the merchants and even the lower ranks of the political conference as it became apparent that water was in short supply.  Rationing had not worked, and in the wake of Septem's crisis, they found only one way out.

Between them and Midway were the Velusian Sand Dunes, great mountains of sand that stretched for thirty iles at least, uncrossable by any means except for motor vehicles, which thankfully many of the dissident residents of Septem already owned.

The Septem army was better organized than the mobs of March, possessing a greater body of weapons.  It arrived in Midway a mere twelve hours after the March fighters, only to find that half the town had already been occupied by the forces from the opposing city.  There were a handful of fighters protecting the well, the founders among them, and it was apparent that they were able to hold their own against the disorganized attacks from March.

It would have been a swift victory for Septem had it not been for the war on two fronts, fighting both March and Midway was difficult for an entering army trying to establish territory, much less find the well.  The Septem army had not been sent off with much in the way of supplies, for they were needed in the city itself, but they had enough to last them for a few days, unlike the March citizens who were looting the houses and shops in their territory, taking whatever they could find, and fighting amongst themselves.

After a quick assessment of the situation from the Septem commanders, a plan had been formed: wipe out March first, for it was the most disorganized of the bunch, and then secure the well from the hands of the Midway towners.  The first task seemed rather easy, for all the March rioters and their numbers, they fought against their own ranks as much as they did with the others, and Septem was sure that would be working towards their advantage.  

They had been surprised however, when they'd found out that March did indeed have a commander, a young boy by the looks of him, long brown hair waving in the wind as he directed his attacks solely on Septem, the incoming army.  Beggars in Septem were mostly docile, living by themselves, hiding their faces from the city's high society, and the Septem soldiers were surprised by the viciousness with which the March beggars fought.  Slashing furiously with knives, their aim deadly with both bullets and stones alike.  

With the arrival of the Septem army, it had become apparent to Harper, Thornsayer and their associates, that they were in for the ride of their lives.  It was no longer a simple intertown rivalry, it turned into something more akin to a war, with gunshots ringing all during the night and all during day, punctuated by screams and the occasional explosion.  Trapped on both sides by March from the north and Septem from the South, Bard Thornsayer was relieved that his family's house was near the center of town, and neither army had pushed that far…yet.  

There was great strain on the small militia gathered out of Midway, but it was a great relief too, for every man and boy that was old enough to fight, aim, and hold a gun had appeared, coming valiantly to the town's defense.  It was a heartening sight to see, the entire town united to protect that which was rightfully theirs.  It was different for every man that fought, some for the town they had just moved to, some for the land, for the insults and the damage already done, for protecting friends and family.  They supported each other with their courage and their sacrifice.  And sacrifices there were.

By the third day of battle, bodies from all three sides lay in the afternoon suns, their rays beating down upon the war below as if they were a fourth enemy, not trying to save themselves but intent on the destruction of everyone.  

David Harper lay dead in the sand, a bullet through his head, and two deep stab wounds in his chest.  As if Septem hadn't done the job already, two boys from March had torn through the fire, smashing their blades into Harper's belly before he could fall to the ground, dead already from the gunshot.  

"Man, this is depressing," Bard laughed, wiping the sweat off his face as he loaded his shotgun, and let it fly into the body of a raggedly clad boy sneaking up on his friend from behind.

"How much longer I wonder?"

"Doesn't look like it'll stop until all of us dead," Bard chuckled grimly, it was macabre he knew, but he couldn't help it.

"Don't say things like that Thornsayer, it's bad luck."

"Well, doesn't it feel like that sometimes?" 

He received no answer.

At the end of the third day, March and Septem City sent reinforcements.  Even after so few days, the water situation was getting more and more desperate.  The two rival cities made a temporary truce; it was clear that the only way to win was to kill off those defending Midway first.

*****

"Mama?" he remembered asking, "how many days has it been?"  He'd lost track of time, in that small world of theirs, without light, shut off from all the sounds of the outside world.

"I'm not sure," his mother answered.  She looked tired, spent, a smear of dust across her forehead.  Her hair had fallen out of its usually neat bun, light brown wisps floated around her face in an unearthly halo as she smiled wanly at her son.  Ismay was sleeping again on the couch, curled tightly into a miserable ball.  For the third time since their imprisonment she'd been crying from nightmares.

He'd sat in the cellar for the past few days, not knowing for exactly how long, but long enough that he was sure he didn't want to see the cellar again should he ever get out, scratching little things in the dust, mostly drawings and the occasional poetry.  He usually erased them immediately, for he thought they were silly, whimsical things, and seeing them would only depress his mother and Ismay.  He tried to turn his thoughts to the world outside, thinking of the days where he and Ismay played with the rest of the children, but then he realized that there were no cheerful memories where that had come from, and so he had turned back to drawing and writing.

It was a dull existence most of the time, when he was not sleeping, as he was wont to do, he was idle, not sure of what to do but bide his time and wait, wait for the misery to end, when his father would pound upon the door and take them all back into the house, and everything would be all right.  He'd heard the words exchanged between his parents, but that must have been days ago, and over the hours of sitting quietly in a chair, watching his mother fuss about the room or cry silently in a corner, he realized the sobriety of the entire business.

He'd read stories about battles and wars, but they were fairy tales, historical stuff from ages ago; no one had wars anymore, everyone was civilized.  What was there to fight over, after all?  He looked over to the bottles of water lined up against the wall, less now than there were before but still plenty, and suddenly he knew the answer.  It frightened him, to see all of that clear liquid sitting against the wooden walls, all of that in the cellar while his father fought outside.  Perhaps his father had been killed already, that was no small possibility.  Irrational fear gripped him at that point, at the thought of the death of his father.  He could almost imagine it happening, his father staggering through the shop and down the stairs to their door, several gun wounds in his chest, bleeding profusely as he collapsed against the door and nameless, faceless strangers pillaged his house, burned his books, and destroyed Ismay's dolls.  

But it couldn't happen that way, he knew, because the world just didn't work that way anymore.  They were no savages with nothing better to do on their hands, they were people, and though they lived in different places he was confident that they were all, each in their own way, good respectable people.

******

"Get out of here, Bard!"

On the sixth day, the March-Septem forces had broken through the makeshift barricades that Midway had erected to protect its water supply.  With a sound of creaking, splintering wood, the wall had fallen and the enemy rushed through, shouting angrily, brandishing weapons: knives, swords, guns, pitchforks, cooking pots and pans.  It was Midway's desperate last stand against two forces, one from each side in a pincer movement, crushing the small town's resistance.  It was not a glorious last stand, it was not a battle that would ever have been written in song, much less history books.  After the breaching of the barricade, it was short, quick, and brutal.  

The warning shout had not been enough, as Young Tom Saver had fallen to the ground, a well-aimed knife lodged to the hilt in his chest.  Bard Thornsayer hadn't even had enough time to run and warn his family before he'd been shot several times, bullets flying in all directions, from Midway, from March, and from Septem.  

"Shit," he'd sworn, lying face down in the dust the heat of the twin suns fading from his body as sure as his own blood was pouring into the sands beneath him, "this is…too much."

The Midway forces had been crushed in a mere matter of hours past that, with no survivors left.  Bodies littered the ground, the dust dyed a deep shade of red from corpses from all three cities, though the Midway fatalities far outnumbered the ranks of the March and Septem.  The leaders of the city forces had rushed forward then, both scrambling to get to the well first, thirsty for a nice drink of cool, clean water.  They dropped the bucket on its rope, eagerly awaiting the splash that meant their battle had not been in vain.  After a few tense moments, both armies eying each other warily, hands on triggers and knives in throwing positions, there was a resounding thud as the bucket hit the bottom of the well.

It had been Midway's final and greatest secret.  Over the final two days of fighting, the Midway well had dried up.

*****

He came awake at the pounding on the door, it was loud and harsh, breaking his dreams and startling his sleep.

"Papa!"  Ismay had called delightedly, jumping to her feet, but her mother held her back.

"What's wrong, Mama?" Ismay asked, her face turning white with fright, as she watched with wide eyes.  There was still a banging on the door, as angry voices penetrated the wood and rang in their ears.

"FUCKERS!  MOTHERFUCKERS!"

As fast a lightning, Alma leapt out of her chair, throwing her children from the couch, and pushing it against the wall, leaving only a small space.

"Quickly!" she hissed, nearly shoving the twins behind the back of the furniture, and covering them with a blanket.  "Be quiet, children, be quiet, and don't come out until I tell you to."  She gave them each a kiss on the forehead.

"GET OUT!  WHERE'S THE WATER!  GIVE IT TO US!"

The most frightening part had been the blanket covering their heads as they hunched together, trying not to breathe, trying not to cry, trying to scream as they heard but could not see the door break open with a loud, splintering crack. 

*****

The leaders of March and Septem stared at each other in disbelief.  The Midway well was gone, and had been gone for hell knew how long…and all this time, what had they been fighting for?  
  


"The water's gone!"  Frank De Fulle gasped, loud enough for all of the forces gathered around the well to here.  A murmur broke out amongst the assembled army, as each man and woman looked to their neighbor in complete disbelief.  It was impossible.

"It's got to be somewhere here," Jimmy Kennet hissed, not about to give up, his face turning red with fury, "it has to be here!  WHERE HAVE THOSE BASTARDS HIDDEN IT!?"

"Maybe it really is—"

"NO!"  Kennet rounded on the Septem commander with a shout.  "RANSACK THE HOUSES!  FIND IT!  FIND THE WATER!  IT'S IN THIS TOWN!  I KNOW IT IS!"

With a great cheer, the armies scattered and broke loose, men tearing into the Midway residences, ripping down doors, shattering windows in a mad chase to find water.  Without it, they would not be satisfied.

*****

"WHERE'S THE WATER!  GIVE IT TO US!  NOW!"

The sound of three pairs of footsteps crashed through the room, throwing whatever small items that had been stopping the door aside or kicking the over roughly.  There was a clatter of tables and chairs and cabinets, but most of all he could his mother scream.  His mother had always been a strong woman, a practical one, as tough and unyielding as his father, and to hear her scream had been the very first nightmare, soon to be followed by much much more.

Ismay trembled in his arms, tears falling liberally down her cheeks as she bit her hand to keep from crying out.  He held her close, one hand on her hair, hardly daring to move, his entire mind and body frozen by the sound of the voices a mere few feet away from where he was hidden.

"There, Jimmy!  There!  Water!"

The sound of hurried footsteps and glass breaking as the men took a few moments to drink their fill.  He could hear his mother panting with fright still in the room, unable to run, unable to move for fear of what would happen to her children should be abandon them.  March and Septem were out for two things, first being water, and second being blood which would make a fine substitute should their top choice not be found.  And of course, because they had been maddened by the fighting, there was always one more thing the men were after.  

"Hey, you're not screaming anymore pretty lady."  One voice, deeper than the rest laughed.  He kicked the coffee table in the center other room aside.  It flew into the couch, smashing the twins against the wall with painful force, but thankfully neither of the children cried out, a fact that gave their mother at least a little relief.

"Guess what we're going to do to you," came a second voice, this one a reedy tenor, the voice high, lyrical, and light with a jovial tone that barely masked the fury writhing underneath.  "Hiding the water, hmmmm?  What were you doing with it?"

"Answer him."

A moment of silence, and then a shout, followed by a gasp of pain from Alma Thornsayer.  Kennet had seized her by the hair, lifting her feet of the ground a few inches.  "Tell me, bitch, what have you been doing with the water?  Where's the rest?"

"T-t-t-this is it…"

"She's lying, Jimmy."

"Shut up, Dan, I wasn't asking you."  

"Now tell us again, lady, where's the rest of the water?"

"I-I-I…I don't know…"

"LIAR!"

He heard his mother scream again, her body hitting the floor as the man threw her down.

"BITCH!  LYING BITCH!"

His mother screamed again, and he felt his body tighten in fright, holding his sister close.  He was going to protect her, he had to, because he promised.

"Dan, Mike, look around the rest of the room.  If she's hiding the water, she'll be hiding more too."

Kennet watched the woman's eyes open wide at his words.

"What are you hiding?"

Silence as the rest of the men turned the room upside down, throwing furniture everywhere.

"Hey, what's this?"

He froze, holding his breath as a rough hand settle on his sister's head and tore her and the blanket along with her, out of his grasp.

"Well, well, well, what have we here?"

The man, dark haired with a heavy, bushy moustache and a scar across his cheek held Ismay aloft by her hair, watching in amusement as she struggled, screaming, kicking, and crying.

"Why a pair of little lambs!"  the other man laughed, he was red-haired, his skin pale and heavily freckled.  The man grinned at him, a frightening grimace that had not come from even his worst nightmares; it was much worse.  The man put both hands on his shoulders in a rough grip, firm, vice-like clamps, hauling him out of hiding.  He was too shocked even to struggle as the man lifted him clear of the couch and into the dim light of the room's sole light bulb.  

"Hey Jimmy, look at this."  The man continued grinning at him, raising him up off the floor by his shirt.  He hung limply, completely paralyzed with fear, afraid of what the three strangers would do to.

His mother lay sprawled out on the ground, panting heavily, her hands curled into fists in the dust, body quivering with anger.

"What's this?"  the man that had been called Jimmy turned his head around for a  moment, taking his eyes off the woman.  

"Boy's got blue hair, look at this."  

With a feral scream, ragged and desperate, much too much like a cornered animal, his mother launched herself off the floor, one arm drawn back in a punch.  She was off the floor before Kennet had finished turning around, swinging her arm around with enough force to knock out a grown man twice her size.  But she was moving too quickly by the time she saw Kennet's smirk and the glint of light in his hand.  She tried to stop and draw back, but her inertia carried her forward.  She opened her mouth in a voiceless gasp, her expression of disbelief echoed on both her children's faces.

She knew her fate even before Kennet smoothly sidestepped the blow, her last hopes dashed as his hand came up to her stomach, wielding a small knife.  She was knocked back by the force of the hit, stumbling backwards a few steps before falling heavily on to the floor on her back.

"No!" Ismay's scream rent the silence as she writhed in the grip of the man who was her.  "Mama!"

He started at the knife embedded in his mother's stomach, the blade still gleaming a dull red in the light.  He watched in horror as his mother's chest rose and fell, her breaths growing weaker, her brown dress dyed black with a spreading circle of her blood.  

Kennet snorted, walking over to the woman's body and bending over her, the same smirk still on his face.  

"Stupid bitch," he sneered.  "You can't catch me off guard like that.  I grew up in the March slums, yea, all by myself.  I never lived the soft life like you folks here.  You've still got a long way to go, woman."

Alma Thornsayer lifted her head weakly off the floor, cold sweat beading on her forehead as she spat the man in front of her.

"Tough, eh?  I like that in a woman.  Too bad it's over now.  Don't worry, this won't hurt much."

In one smooth motion, Kennet undid the belt at his waist, whipping the length of leather free, grinning wickedly as he let it drop to the ground with a loud clatter of the buckle, frighteningly graceful in his fury.  Next the pants came undone, pooling around his legs.  The other men cheered him on, keeping an iron grip on the two twins in their charge.  Ismay cried out in dismay, as Kennet pulled the knife free with no small amount of blood, tossing it into the corner.  Ismay turned her head to the side and closed her eyes, trying to hide her sobs.

"Better watch carefully boy," the red-haired man holding him growled, strong fingers around his chin, not allowing him to turn away.  His mother didn't scream much, though she did not put up much of a struggle either.  Her breath became more and more shallow, the air inside her lungs rattling with each labored exhale.  Her movements were slowing and weakening, until she no longer had the strength to resist, but simply lay there as the man above her rocked back and forth, pressed tightly against her skin where her dress had been pushed up.  

The spectacle horrified him completely, he was not entirely sure what it was the man was doing, but from the other jeering voices and the wicked sneers, he knew it was something terrible.  His heart sank to the pit of his stomach and he was unable to move, too scared even to breathe, his small strength barely holding up his trembling legs.  It was as if the world had suddenly closed in on him, no longer was it an open, exciting paradise, but a dark cloud had settled, blocking all sound from reaching him.  He was not even sure he heard the man grunt when he shuddered, long fingers digging into the flesh of his dead mother.

Finally the man rose to his feet and pulled his pants back up, revealing a large dark stain on his abdomen where he had pressed against the woman's wound.  

"What do we do with these kids, Jimmy?"  the man holding Ismay asked.

"Whatever you want, Dan.  I know you like 'em young."  

Ismay screamed at that comment, seeming to understand her fate.  Her cry was shrill and frightened, and he turned to look at her with wide eyes as she reached a hand out to him.

"Help me—"

"Not a chance," the man twisted her arm behind her back, and lifted her over his shoulder.  She screamed again, picking and punching.

He watched, numb, entirely sure that this was some extended nightmare, that it would end soon and he would wake up and the suns would be shining outside his window.  The man threw Ismay to the ground next to her mother, and with one large, rough hand tore away her dress, throwing the ragged piece of cloth aside, not giving it another thought as she struggled beneath him.

It would almost have been comical had it not been for the screams and the sobs, his sister's body so incomparably small next to the other man's; it was a small wonder he didn't crush with his weight he pressed himself to her lower half.

"Help me!"

He watched in stony silence as her words faded, drowned and lost in the sea of her screaming.  The man was acting similarly as Kennet had with his mother.  His eyes flitted to her corpse.  

His mother's hair was strewn on the floor, her dress pushed up to her stomach, revealing her wound and her plump white leg, now covered in vibrant, crimson blood.  Her eyes were open, staring into the corner of the room, her face expressionless as a single line of blood marked the corner of her mouth, a red ribbon dribbling down the side of her cheek.

"Help!" his sister screamed again, her voice choked by her sobs.  She lifted her head to look in the eye.  "You promised."

He turned back to her, seeing her frightened face as if for the first time.  Ismay, his twin sister, the one piece completing the puzzle of his life, reaching her hand out to him.  He followed her arm downwards, watching the pool of scarlet spread by her legs, staining her socks with blood.  

"Help me…you promised."

"No!" he finally moved, flinging the man holding him aside.  It was the swelling of a chorus, the sudden rush of the wind as something within him crumbled, something bursting forth and pouring into and out of him in raging torrents like the waves of the mythical seas.

"Shit!" Kennet shouted, starting at him in disbelief.  

He ignored Kennet and rushed the man holding Ismay to the ground.  "Stop it!"  Before he even touched the man, it was if he had moved of his own volition, springing up, tripping over his own pants, letting go of Ismay and flinging himself head first into the nearest wall.  As the body slid down the wall, already dead, there was a dark spatter of blood where he had hit.

"Fuck!" Jimmy hissed, not taking another look back as he fled out the door, scrambling up the stairs and out the house.

"Ismay!"  he bent down to his twin sister, gathering her small body in his arms.  "Ismay…I'm here.  He shook her gently.  Her eyes were closed, and her head lolled to the side.  "Ismay!  I'm here!  Ismay!  Wake up!"

He shook her but she did not respond, one hand falling to the ground with a bloody splash.

"Ismay…I protected you…see?  Ismay!  Ismay!"

He cried, holding her body tight to his, not even hearing the faintest fluttering of her heart.  He smoothed her dark hair aside, touching her cold cheek.  His twin sister would never smile, never laugh, never play with him again.  He screamed loud and hard, drawing giants breaths of air into his lungs and crying out over and over until he felt dizzy and weak, though he could still hear himself screaming long after he'd lost his breath.  

The only fuzzy parts of his memory were the days after that, where he must have, in a daze, run out his house.  He vaguely remembered seeing the body of his father, fallen by the well, and he only bare had sense enough to scoop up the half-filled water canteen that his father's corpse had covered.

He fled the town, neither in the direction of March City nor Septem, but heading somewhere where he knew no one would be.  He wandered for what must have been days, plodding through desert, through sand and cracked, dry earth, not seeing hide or shade of any animal or plant, with only the merciless suns shining over his head as his companions.

He wandered aimlessly, not in any particular direction but only needing to move, to feel the rhythm of his feet walking, one foot in front of another, so he could lose himself in memory and pretend it was all a dream.  Sometimes he would think that it would be all over soon, the loneliness, the sadness, and the pain.  After all, who did he have left?  His sister and his mother had died in front of his eyes, his father had been killed in the battle, and he couldn't remember any of his parents mentioning any living relatives.  Who would take him in anyway?  He had blue hair and golden eyes, and even though his parents never mentioned those things to him, he could still see the sad look on her face.  Perhaps she had been wondering what had gone wrong, why one of her children had come out so strange and alien.  He came to the conclusion that it was better to be out on his own; with Ismay dead an entire half of his life had been demolished, and with his parents dead there was nothing left for him to live for.  There was no one left who would want him, no one make him feel needed or loved.

With his water long gone, he'd finally consigned himself to the sand, collapsing into it, wishing the winds would blow and he could die, buried alive in desert.  He remembered reading about suicide in his books, about people wanting to die, but he'd never been able to imagine what it would feel like until then.  He closed his eyes, and prayed for the end.  When he awoke again, it was nearing night and the temperature was beginning to cool, the suns sinking below the endless horizon. 

There was a figure standing before him, clothed in white and red, silhouetted against the fiery suns.  He was tall and broad-shouldered, his head covered with hair that was of the lightest shade of gold, gazing into the distance with piercing sky-blue eyes.  He suspected it may have been God come to call on him, to take him to heaven perhaps…

"Am I dead?" his voice murmured, so quiet it was barely audible, even to himself.  

…or perhaps to abandon him instead.

"No," the voice answered, deep and soothing, veiled in mystery and a little contempt.  "You're still alive."

"Oh," he whispered, more than just a little disappointed.  

"It was you who screamed."  It was not a question, but a statement, and he could not deny it, his mind briefly wandering to the image of his sister in his arms, already dead, blood running down her thin, pale legs.  He pushed the sadness away, willing himself to forget.

"I heard you from far away.  For a human child, you have miraculous powers.  I may have some use for you."

"Use?" he asked, even that little bit too much to hope for.

"What's your name, boy?"

"L-L-Legato Thornsayer," he replied quietly.  

"Thornsayer?"  The man thought for a bit.  "I don't recall that name from the ship."  One hand settled on his head, gently smoothing the sand from the strands of his hair.  

"Your hair…it's blue."

"I know."  Legato turned his head away in shame, surprised that after so long, tears would still come to his eyes.

"It reminds me of the sky," the man murmured, taking a lock in his gloved fingers and examining it closely.  "And the sea on a cloudless summer day."  

Legato stayed silent, saying nothing, trying his best not to cry.  Had anyone ever said anything so kind about the color of his hair?  He'd always been teased by the other children about it, and his parents had never mentioned it to him.  He had long suspected it was something to be ashamed of, just another thing that made him different from everyone else, an outcast even among his own family.  

"I like it."  

The hands left his head and the man turned to gaze into his eyes with the smallest hint of a smile.  

"I have a new name for you, boy.  Thornsayer is too plain for a child of your powers and potential.

From now on, I name you Legato Bluesummers."

Bluesummers…Bluesummers…such a wonderful, beautiful, lyrical name.  He liked it.  He liked it very much.

_End Dying in the Sun_

Author's Notes: The text in italics that Legato is reading is actually from Grendel by John Gardner.  He's an awesome writer, and you really ought to read that book.  The apples are a reference to the apple in Kafka's Metamorphosis.  And yes, I did name this fic after the lines in the Robert Frost poem.


	2. Yesterday's Gone

**And Miles to Go…**

_Chapter Two: Yesterday's Gone_

By Seishuku Skuld (skuldhotohori@yahoo.com)

Series: Trigun

Pairing: Knives + Legato  

Warnings: spoilers for the anime

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The boy had power, and Knives knew that very well.  It was not difficult for him to delve into the young boy's mind and see exactly what had unleashed the initial surge of his mental energies.  What he saw there surprised him, the pure potential of such a human was unheard of—impossible— yet there it was, right in front of him, barely shielded.  Knives had only a vague idea what sort of mutations could have caused the boy's ability; but whether or not he knew, he would take advantage of it just the same.  

The boy was both a high-level telepath and a high-level telekinetic.  Not only would he be able to invade and control another human's mind, he would be able to move objects of incredible weight with incredible accuracy and speed.  It was something that Knives himself was capable of quite easily, but for that to be present in a human child—it was almost preposterous.  Of course, the boy had not yet been trained in the use of his powers, so there still remained some fragile barrier that prevented him full access to the use of his abilities.  Knives suspected that whatever had broken the initial wall inside him must have been sufficiently traumatic to also weaken the rest of the boy's shields.  Now all it would take for Knives to unleash the boy's power would be to destroy those barriers.

Knives put a hand on the boy's hair—a glorious shade of blue, so beautiful in the night that was falling over their side of the tiny planet.  

"Tell me about yourself, Legato," he said, drawing the boy close to himself.  Knives had learned that human children needed to be shown kindness.  They were creatures easily malleable if shown a few things: things to amaze and astound, and little bits of affection—small trinkets that were easily given to capture a child's heart.  The night was going to be cold, and the boy's thin clothes were not adequate protection against the chill winds of the midnight desert.  He moved the child to his lap as he had seen others do before, wrapping his arms around the small body, providing warmth enough for both of them.  

The boy related his tale hesitantly, with no small amount of shuddering, urged each step of the way by a very patient Knives.  It took nearly an entire night to coax the child into his relating his story: the destruction of his town, the death of his parents and his twin sister, his years being hated and despised by the other children.  The boy cried many times, sniffling miserably, only willing to talk because of the warm, strong arms around him, arms that did not shun him for his difference.  

Finally Legato finished, having spilled out everything he had known about himself, his parents, and his town.  The boy was exhausted and thirsty, and Knives let him drink a bit of his own water before the child had fallen asleep, one hand tightly gripping the older man's clothes.  

Knives had been passing nearby when he'd heard the telepathic scream, and fortunately had been curious enough to investigate.  He'd almost given up the search after two days when he suddenly spotted a small tuft of blue, barely visible from the beneath the blowing sand.  He'd taken the boy from the arms of the desert where it was burying him alive, and soon enough the boy had awakened, a sad, lonely child with mournful golden eyes.  

It was early in the morning when the boy opened his eyes again, rubbing them sleepily with a dusty hand, and gazing with open adoration and awe at the man who had held him all night.

"Good morning," Legato murmured.  The boy smiled a bit as the man ruffled his hair.  "What are we going to do now?"

"A little instruction in your powers, Legato."

"Powers?"

While the boy had slept, Knives had not only investigated the  full  extent of the boy's abilities, but had also stripped the boy down to his most recent memories: the vivid smells of the blood caking the dirt floor, the sharp images of the man thrown aside by the emergence of the child's extraordinary gift.  

"The ones you used to get the man off your sister," Knives explained.  "You hold a great power inside you, boy.  The power to enter another person's mind, the power to move things without having to touch them."

"Really?"  Legato gasped, his eyes opening wide.  He had said very little about the men intruding into his house when he related his tale last night.  How could this man have known what had happened?  Was he some sort of Angel, like the ones he'd read about in his books?

"Yes," the man answered, "how else do you think you disposed of those men so quickly?"

"I don't know."  The child stared blankly at him and shook his head.  "Did Ismay have my powers too?"

The man shook his head.  "No.  Her black hair and brown eyes made her ordinary.  She was not special like you."

"Oh," Legato sighed, his head drooping, saddened again by the remembrance of his sister.  Knives almost thought the boy was going burst into tears again, when suddenly Legato smiled brightly.  "But that's okay."

"Okay?"  Knives lifted an eyebrow.

"Yes," Legato nodded fervently.  "You found me.  So I'll be all right now."

"And what are you planning to do from here on?"

"Follow you, of course, sir," Legato answered innocently, gazing curiously at Knives, the thought of them parting having not yet crossed his mind as possibility. 

"Because you have nowhere else to go?" Knives asked evenly, his no expression on his face.

"No," Legato shook his head boldly, not afraid to speak to the man who had saved him, "because I think you're special too.  You're different, like me."

Knives narrowed his eyes and glared at the child for such an insult, uttered in ignorance.  The boy paused for a moment, a sudden flash of fear crossing his eyes before Knives remember that he must be patient and kind.  Knives quickly reined in his anger, and softened the angry tone he was about to take with Legato.  "No, I am not like you either."

Legato's eyes widened, and his voice dropped to a whisper.  He was still afraid of the look that had passed over the older man's face, but it was now gone, and Legato's childish curiosity got the better of him.  "Then you're an Angel like the books say?"  

Knives schooled his expression into a smile.  He'd probably read those same books eons ago on the ship, and getting such a reaction of disbelief from the child was nothing short of comical.  Human children, no matter how intelligent, were so easily beguiled, easily trained to believe whatever their stories told them.  How pathetic.  Pitiful, but also useful.  The boy was still at a young enough age to be of use.  

"No," Knives grinned, "I'm not an Angel.  I'm more powerful than Angels."

"More powerful than Angels?"  Legato echoed.  He frowned for a moment, appearing to be deep in thought.  "What are you then?"

"That's a long story.  I may tell you later, boy."

"Then that means you're going to let me follow you?"

"Of course," Knives threw the kid his best harmless smile, "there are many things I have to teach you, Legato."

They set out at a walk, Knives only half-listening to the child speak.  Legato's step had acquired a strange sort of bounce to it as he struggled to keep up with the larger man's longer stride.  Legato's quiet voice was talking steadily, recounting some story that he had read earlier in his childhood about some Angels, and the powers had.  After a few hours, long tired of the boy's voice, and unable to endure much more, Knives turned to the child and told him firmly to stop talking.  

"Do you always talk to so much?"  Knives tried his best to keep the annoyance out of his voice, but it still managed to slip out of his grasp.

Legato shook his head, all previous excitement banished from his tiny figure.  He hunched over slightly and hung his head, nearly fully withdrawing into himself.  "No.  I just…wanted to talk.  I'm sorry."  

Knives watched as the boy bit his lip and stared hard at the sand, kicking around a little bit of it with a dirty shoe.  "Can I ask…?"

"Yes?" 

"Where are we going?"

"To Midway."

 "Back home?"  Legato whispered, his small voice barely heard above the slight blowing of the wind.  "Why?"  The boy shivered as whatever was left of the joy of Angels drained out of his face, leaving only a thin, thoroughly frightened creature.  

Knives realized he would have to answer that question if he didn't want to lose the child.  He would long abandoned the boy to the elements and counted it as yet another piece of trash taken of the planet, had it not been for the child's abilities.  Legato would prove to be an effective tool.  "If you want to learn full control of your powers, Legato, you're going to have to go back."

"Back?"  the boy sank to the ground, his legs folding quickly beneath his small frame.  All the energy Knives had seen those recent hours had quickly seeped away, and Legato once more looked sad and mournful.  A tiny, pathetic child, clinging to the happy memories of his family, refusing to believe in the reality that his peers had brutally murdered his loved ones and destroyed his town.  

Knives sighed.  Perhaps it was better to give the small thing some training before he brought him back into the town.  After all, there was no guarantee that Legato would be able to use his abilities the way they were meant to be used; there was always the possibility that the boy would resist, and then he would have spent three fruitless days on a young human offspring.  And that was three days further from Vash, wherever he was, and three days wasted.  Knives was a patient  man, but he did not have enough time to waste on human trash.  

"All right, Legato, it looks like you're tired.  Why don't we stop here for a while, and I'll see what you can do.

"Try this," Knives sat down in the sand beside the boy and hefted his water bottle in one hand, levitating it with ease as Legato stared at it, wide-eyed.  He brushed the child's mind gently, sending him a flurry of images and instructions to show him how he was doing it.  After several moments had passed, and satisfied that the boy had understood, he let the bottle drop into Legato's waiting hands.

Without hesitating, Legato took a deep breath, and following the bottle carefully with his eyes, he lifted it above his head and spun it slowly around in the air.  

Knives raised his eyebrows in surprise; he'd only known human children to be stupid and slow, but Legato proved to be a quick learn.  He was careful and deft, and able to surpass the simple skills that Knives had demonstrated to him.  Knives rewarded the child with smiles and small pats to the head, and that seemed to be everything that the boy needed as encouragement and reward.  Legato, so scared and withdrawn before needed nothing more than a little attention—that one might give a pet dog or cat—and he was once more smiling. 

It was well past midday when Knives and his young protégé set out on foot again, the boy working hard on his telekinesis with whatever struggling shrubs they chanced upon, and lacking that the boy practiced making patterns with the sand, the small particles of dust dancing in the air.  

"Wow," Legato laughed, absolutely delighted.  Not in his wildest dreams had he ever dreamt that he would be able to perform such miraculous acts.  The sand, the water, even pulling the plants out by the roots and shaking the dust from them entranced him and amazed him.  He was not even sure he half-believed it.  "I never thought I would be able to do things like this!" he breathed with wonder.

Knives just ruffled his hair gently.  "You'll be able to do more things in the future.  This is just the beginning."

"Good," Legato grinned, and went back to his 'work.'

They stopped for the day when the suns had finally begun their descent below the horizon, casting the twilight sky into soft shades of red and gold.  Though the night would settle quickly, bringing with it much chill, the day had not been particularly hot.  Knives was relieved the child had survived the day.  Legato was just beginning to show the signs of weariness, sinking with relief into the sand only a few moments after Knives had found a seat himself.  The boy took a small sip from the near-empty bottle, fully knowing how precious of a commodity the water was.  He drank, and held it out to the older man.  

Knives shook his head.  "I don't need it."

"Why not?"  the boy cocked his head curiously to the side.  "You haven't had any water all day.  Do Angels not need water?"

"I don't need to drink."  And I'm not an Angel, Knives added silently, though he was beginning to think it wonderfully ironic that the child thought of him in that way.  

"There's no need to make any sacrifices for me," Legato whispered quietly, his eyes lowered, studying the sand intently.  

Knives broke into laughter, the hilarity of the situation fully arousing what little humor he normally possessed.  The laughter passed quickly, and left them both in silence—Knives with his thoughts, and Legato still playing about with his newfound abilities.  

Eventually, Knives figured, starting thoughtfully at the boy, Legato would have to know.  After all, if he and Vash were to be gods of this world, it would not do to have the boy remain ignorant of their greatness.  

Legato would be his weapon, the instrument of destruction that he would use against the pitiful human race—a tool that had once belonged to them, that they had cast aside and shunned in ignorance.  He would turn their own against them, and then Vash would finally understand.  Vash would join in, and together they would destroy the vermin that crawled about the planet and enslaved their kin.  Then they, together, would make it anew.  A better planet, with no sadness, no strife, and none of the vices of humanity.

"Come," Knives extended his arm to the boy and pulled him close.  Legato hesitated only for a moment before climbing the older man's lap.  Knives wrapped his arms about the boy, as he had done the night before.  The moons had already risen, one after another in their intricate dances in the sky.  The suns had already sunk below the horizon, and a mean wind was kicking up, blowing cold air into the holes in the child's travel-worn clothing.  

Legato shifted slightly as the wind tore through him, turning his face into Knives's chest, where he could hear a steady, strong heartbeat.  He curled his fingers in Knives' tight clothing, gripping the cloth between his fingers.  It was warm there.  Though he could still feel the wind at his back, he paid it no heed.  The warmth fought off the cold.

Knives felt a smirk crawl its way across his face as the child snuggled closer to him, seeking protection from the cold.  This kid was trusting, so innocent.  Yet another pitiful, but helpful trait.  Legato was full of them, and Knives would use each and every one to its fullest extent.

"There is one more thing you have to learn tonight."

"One more?  What is it?"  Legato asked, lifting his head away from Knives' chest to regard him with wide eyes.

"This."  Knives put his fingers on the boy's head, burying them into his blue hair and opening his mind to the child.  "This is something that only I can teach you."

He watched with satisfaction as Legato's eyes opened wide, his irises shining golden in the moonlight.  And then, Legato screamed. 

*~*~*

Somewhere, dimly in the corner of his mind, Legato knew he was screaming.  It was a tiny piece of psyche however, and could do no more than blanch at the horrors he witnessed.  He could not even stop the cries that were ripping themselves repeatedly from his own throat, leaving it dry and parched after a mere few seconds.  

Wherever it was that he had hidden his memories of the previous few days had been found and torn from his grasp entirely.  The memories unfolded before him like the blooming petals of a flower, and he gazed at the images and heard the screams, forced to relive his most horrific moment.  

_Stop!  Stop it!_

It was a macabre parade, a movie of terrors he was forced to watch.  It was an insidious whisper-turned-roar in his mind, and he could no more turn away than wrench himself from the iron grasp of the hand on his head.  He called for help, but there was no response.  Not even the slightest bit of pity or sympathy answered him.  Eventually, his struggle died, and he slumped back in despair.  

_Someone please…stop…_

Blood was red, as was the stain on his mother's dress and the glint of the knife embedded in her abdomen.  He heard her screams and the footsteps of the man closing in on her, understanding for the first time what it was she had feared, what the grins on the men's faces meant.  He understood their callous laughter and their cat-calls.  Now it all had a name.  

He re-watched his sister and her cream-stained-crimson dress, the little white buttons dripping scarlet drops of rain, her socks wet with her own blood.  He watched in shock as the pool of red around her legs spread into a pool that formed a halo around her quivering, screaming body.  Then he understood what it had meant, what it was to Ismay as she looked at him with pain and despair in her eyes, her fingers outstretched to him in pleading.  He understood what it was to force such womanhood upon a child, to drain the innocence away from her body as surely as her blood was rushing out of her.  He recoiled in disgust, horrified at the memory.  

_Terrible…someone stop him…_

But there was no one and nothing to stop the swelling of the chorus, and slowly new, novel images were added amongst the old ones; the cries of the women and the animalistic grunting of the men, the sounds of explosives and gunshots, and the dull thud of cadavers as they hit the ground.  

_No…_

Small towns whose names he mysteriously knew ran red, blood drenching the cracked, yellow dust as if poured from bottles of fine wine.  Laughter echoed about the buildings, followed by moments of silence filled with tears, and the shouts of a dying men worth nothing, not even an insignificant speck in the great world, clad in torn rags, weeping as the world faded into darkness.

_Don't do it…_

There was the glint of sharp metal followed by moments of excruciating pain, sometimes mixed with the crying of children, and the sounds of sneers as they spread across twisted faces, and the metallic clink of coins as men robbed their fathers and murdered their sons.  

_Stop it!  Stop!_

Unworthy, monstrous savages that ravaged the planet, feeding off each other and spreading disease, no better than the beasts they fed and tended.  Intelligent monsters they were, for their greed, their hunger, their bloodlust was never sated; always gluttonous and never satisfied, never realizing what contemptuous insects they were.  

_They…_

What were they to each other?  Nothing but conveniences for their own ambitions and dreams of power.  Love crumbled to dust under visions of wealth, brotherhood shattered by the promises of a few drops of water, such fragile ties broken by the materialism of the physical world.  Mobs trampled their friends and foes alike, jeering for the public deaths of their families.  They were bloodthirsty, they were drunk on destruction and death, and they would never, never be filled.  

_Ismay…they…_

And then the onslaught stopped.  He was reeling from the sensation of nothing but the quiet blackness as the images, the smells, the sounds, and the pain stopped, leaving him raw, sensitive, and very fatigued.  He opened his mouth, but to his surprise the words he had been forming had melted entirely in his exhaustion.  

What could he do now?  What did he have left?  To deny it was to be cowardly, to lie, to bury his head beneath the sand and forever be blind to the truth which had already been shown him.  No, not shown him, he had been there.  He had seen them, he had lived them, and he had to embrace it, he had to take it into his own heart, because it was his only choice.  He had to do it with conviction and to never look back, lest it shatter him completely.  He took a deep breath, but still only managed a cracked whisper.  

"Killing them all would not even be enough to avenge you, Ismay."

*~*~*

Knives roused the child in the morning.  He was pleased with the response from the previous night; the boy had responded to him quite well.  Legato was a remarkable find, not only in his powers, but also in that the child's abilities had made the experiences seem real, not merely transferred memories.  Knives supposed he had the boy's human parents to thank for that, but of course he would never seriously consider doing anything as ludicrous as that.  His thanks would soon be delivered in another more pleasing form.  Legato had fallen asleep almost immediately after the end of his "instruction," dropping lifelessly into Knives' arms like a rag doll.  He smiled.  Legato was already shaping up to be very useful.  His precious, priceless weapon.  

The boy blinked sleepily as Knives put a hand on his head, running white-gloved fingers through blue strands of hair.  

"Wake up.  It's time to go."  

Legato nodded, obediently detaching himself from Knives and slowly standing up, stretching his muscles.  The suns had risen and already it seemed as if the heat was determined to bake them as they walked.  

They set off in the direction of Midway, Knives surmising that they only had a few more iles to go; they would likely reach the town by mid-afternoon.  Legato was silent as he walked beside the older man, his expression dark and baleful.  Nevertheless, he continued to experiment with his powers, weaving complex sand patterns in the wind, or digging deep ravines along the sand, watching with little amusement as they filled back up.  

It was a quiet little journey back to the child's hometown.  Knives had no doubt what Legato wanted to do.  The child's fists were clenched at his sides, the boy's entire body tensed with anger, his thoughts tumultuous with ill-restrained emotion.  Despite the lack of food, the boy had plenty of energy with which to fuel himself.  Even without further prodding from Knives, the child was reliving each moment he had experienced last night.

It was already late afternoon by the time they reached Midway – the hottest time of day.  Most of the city was already deserted, or so it seemed from the outside.  The buildings were still standing, but there was no air of hustle and bustle about it; it was as quiet, for a shroud had settled upon the town, and through that invisible barrier no sound penetrated.  No one was to be seen in the streets, so no one reported the arrival of a tall blond man dressed in white and a little boy with blue hair.  

Midway looked like it had survived the attack of the two cities, but only barely.  Corpses littered the ground, lying where they had fallen days before, already starting to foul.  No one had bothered to bury them yet, and the flies were already going dutifully about their work, swarming about the cadavers in buzzing storm clouds of black.  Knives smirked; Legato shuddered.  

Somewhere amongst the sea of bodies, his father lay.  Was he too covered in flies?  Had he too been left to the winds and the sand with no one to care for his remains?  It was disgusting, that neglect, and Legato could feel the sharp taste of bile in the back of his throat. Somewhere in the rows of empty houses lay his mother and his sister, Ismay, the blood on her dress no doubt now a dried, crusty brown.  He wondered if anyone had moved them, or if others had also come to defile their bodies.  Legato curled his lip in distaste.  

"Damn them," he murmured quietly, surveying the scenery about him as he continued walking down the main street.  He didn't notice that Knives had left him at the outskirts of the town, keeping a careful watch on his little precious plaything.  Legato continued forward with only one thing on his mind.  

The houses and small shops looked battered and deserted, the fallen lying in the dust on either side of him, testament to the horrors they had witnessed a few days ago.  Broken glass windows grinned at him with large, gap-toothed smiles, the wind whistling through them, whispering in his mind.  The doors too, spoke to him as they clapped in the wind, and even the buzzing of the flies and the gnats seemed to wait with bated breath as the floodgates prepared to open.  

The silence broke as Legato approached the center of the town.  He could hear voices, the first human sound from the deserted city.  They had begun as faint noises, soon growing louder and more distinct as he drew closer.  They were talking casually, punctuated by the occasional grunt of exclamation.  

"Damn those bastards, fallin' near the well and stinkin' up the whole town."  
  


"Well, we're jes' lucky they all fell close to a nice place to dump 'em."

That comment was followed by boisterous laughter.  By now, Legato could see them, though they had not yet noticed him.  They were a group of men, from young boys to old, whiskered men, clustered near the well, laughing and joking despite the heat of the afternoon sun.  A few were dragging the bodies of the dead in the blood-encrusted dust, and other men were tossing them unceremoniously into the well.  There would be a space of silence, followed by a thud, and one of the men would laugh.  Legato noticed that a small area in the field corpses had already been cleared when one of the men looked up.  

"'Ey, what've we got 'ere?" he asked cautiously, dropping the arm of the dead man he had been dragging into the dirt.  
  


"Funny little thing with blue hair, eh?  Ain't seen anythin' like that before."

The other men too, stopped their work to stare at the tiny intruder, uneasy with the shine of his golden eyes in the bright sunlight.  They glanced at each other sidelong, not quite certain it was safe to take their gazes off the kid.  There was something strange about a boy suddenly appearing in the city and approaching them silent.  He carried himself as one much older than his age and much taller than his short stature, and that too made the men hesitate. 

"Reckon' it's a girl?" a blond one said, speaking out the side of his mouth.  Maybe the kid couldn't hear him.  He'd made little move so far, after all.  

"Nah, it must be a boy."

"Someone get Jim, that's the kid he told us to look out for."

"That kid?"  
  
"Who else is gonna have blue hair, ye dolt!"

"I hear Jimmy says he got magic."

"Magic?  That don't exist, Cyrus."

"Well, how else would a big man like Dan've died, eh?  He didn't run himself into that wall!"

"Calm down now, we don' know for sure what happened to Dan, don't go 'round assumin' nothin'."

Then the men fell silent as from out of the door of Legato's house -- the Thornsayer residence and its sign hanging precariously off one nail -- there emerged a pair of men the boy recognized.  The leader, thin and brown-haired, was wearing a clean, white-collared shirt that was a few sizes too big.  He leaned against the doorframe as he scrutinized the boy closely.  

"You've got balls to come back here, boy.  Especially after you killed one of my men."

He raised his right hand and immediately men came trotting out of the house carrying an array of small weaponry.  They were a mixed lot, bearing mostly guns and knives, but with a few random knick-knacks about them that would have made Legato laugh had not the situation been so deathly serious.  They surrounded him, pushing the laborers out of the way, but not making a move, awaiting their boss's order.  

"No one kills my man and gets away with it."

He sauntered jauntily off the porch as if he owned the entire town (and he might as well have), coming to a stop a few feet in front of Legato.  He was much taller than the boy, and even at his distance, the child stood completely within his shadow.  

Legato glared at him, his face a mask of stony silence.  He started icily at the man for a while, listening to roar of anticipation in his ears, the boiling of his blood, the beating of his heart threatening to overwhelm his senses.  He spoke quietly, very aware of the men behind him, moving in to attack.

"Tell me your name."

"Eh?"  The man blinked, thrown off his guard for a few seconds.  He recovered quickly from the strange request.  "You ain't got no right to be asking that, kid."

"Tell me your name."

"You're one strange kid, you know that, boy?  To come back here and ask that.  Guys, get hi—!"

And he stopped speaking.  The men behind Legato gaped, stopped in their tracks as their leader's eyes bulged, his face turning bright red, his mouth opening and closing without sound.  He glowered at the boy, his brown eyes blazing with an anger that was no match Legato's cold, golden gaze.  

Legato did not quite know how he did it, but what mattered to him the most was that it could be done.  He remembered snatches of how the nameless blond man had gone into his head to instruct him, and so he had tried the exact same thing.  He had not developed completely control of his powers yet, so he was clumsy in his actions, but even then, he had the strength of a full-fledged sandstorm.  

Breaking into the man's mind had been accomplished surprisingly easily.  What came next was quite a bit harder.  To figure out what to do with what was already there, and how to do it proved to be a considerable challenge.  Undaunted, however, Legato reached for the first thing in his mental grasp, a memory.  He examined it, something to do with being bullied by older men, wrinkled his nose in disgust, and tossed it away.  Then he grabbed another one, pulled it out from the sea in which it lay, and finding not what he wanted, he discarded that one too.  

The men gazed at their leader, now on his knees, slumped onto the boy's shoulder, unmoving, eyes wide with terror as he whimpered.  They watched with horror as their boss slipped to the ground and into the dusty street, convulsing uncontrollably and screaming as he covered his head with his arms.

Legato, unsatisfied with what he was finding, had begun to dig himself deeper, plunging into the man's mind.  He was breaking walls, ripping memories, shredding them from the man and rending them asunder as he looked and looked, finding them all revolting.  He tore them from the man in huge chunks with his hands, neither heeding the screams or the frantic cries, but he wanted more, he was inside and he could have everything, so he continued, relentlessly and without mercy.  

Memories of his mother: disgusting.  His friends, his pathetic childhood, his petty theft, his ambitions, his abhorrent desires, all twisted and disgusting.  The joy he felt at taking another woman's body – foul.  Legato tossed them all away.    

Legato had the name already, and he put that little piece away for safekeeping.  He wanted more.  He wanted to know everything, he wanted to see everything, and so he could know the man and so he could judge him.  Legato could hear his own body screaming, his voice gone shrill as it cried out, ascending to the sky.  

"Kennet!"  He shouted, feeling tears spring up in his eyes, "Kennet!  Kennet!  Kennet!  Jimmy Timothy Kennet!"  And he said that name over and over again until the air was filled with it and the clouds were heavy with it, and he wanted nothing more than the man to be gone from his sight, the man to be dead,  for he was hatred and violence and abuse, for he had started it all, this whole terrible thing; he had taken Ismay away, and he of all people deserved to die first.  

He screamed in triumph as he stripped Kennet of the last of his loathsome memories.  He grinned with maniacal glee, as he snapped back into his own mind, and with his powers he reached into Kennet's chest, remembering the lessons with the water bottle and the kaleidoscope of sand patterns.  He touched Kennet's heart, fondling the organ and caressing it, feeling its softness and its rhythm.  He was going to end it all.

Legato squeezed.  

Kennet stilled, his body sinking into the hard earth.  He had not even uttered a final cry of death.  His eyes remained wide open, his mind empty, completely devoid.  Legato smirked.  Kennet had started everything, and now it had all ended.  

The men behind Legato dropped all their weapons with a clatter.  

"Wh-what are you?"

Legato did not reply, but slowly turned to face them.  He did not quite know how to answer them.  He, like all humans, was flawed.  But unlike them, he was better because he knew of all their follies and the angel that had saved him in the desert had chosen him and taught him how to use his great powers.  

"Nothing out of the ordinary."

With a small push, the tiniest of tiny efforts, the walls surrounding the remains of Legato's powers crumbled, and energy poured forth and filled him.  The men ran, but Legato did not let them escape.  They would get what they deserved.  All of them.   

Buildings exploded when he looked at them, brick and wood bursting outward with the sound of a thunderclap.  A few scant people rushed out of the houses, screaming and covering their heads with their hands.  The first to fall were all the ones nearest to Legato, the ones by the well.  The houses too, all around him were falling.  Some splintered, others imploded, and some just collapsed as if the very foundations upon which they had been built had been swept away.  

The atmosphere was heavy with the smell of dust and the earth shook, its dry, cracked surface splitting into large chasms and dark abysses.  

When the second wave of power hit, everything and everyone within one hundred yarz was destroyed.  Limbs burst and heads exploded, others cut down cleanly by an invisible blade, some simply fell still and unmoving in the rain of debris.  

Then the third wave of power emerged from the boy, and this one was white and hot and filled with damnation; it leveled entire buildings, and they dissolved into dust as the people screamed, watching their flesh burn off their bodies.  Then another wave hit and another and another, until the ground beneath his feet was quivering and groaning, until everything had fallen and all that remained were the sands and the wind, a sea of crimson, and he was the only one left in the silence and he was still screaming. 

Abruptly he stopped, and all became quiet.  He slumped to his knees, utterly exhausted.  Out of the ashes rose the figure of the blond man, his white attire impeccably clean, without a single grain of sand marring its brilliance.  

"Well done, Legato, well done."

He placed a hand on the blue head, wiping the dust from the strands of the boy's hair.  

The child lifted his head tiredly and smiled.  "Thank you.  I liked it."

"Oh?"

"Like finishing a book with a good ending."

Knives smiled.  "Perhaps we should rest here for the night before we continue."

"Continue to where, sir?" Legato asked, dimly wondering if it was at all possible the man would take him in.

"The place I call home, child."

"Home…"  Legato liked that feeling that word, now associated with the man, and no longer with his mother, his father, and his twin sister.  Legato smiled as he fell forward, and the man caught him in strong, steady arms. "And what should I call you, sir?  You never told me your name."

"Millions Knives.  But you can just call me Knives for now."

"Yes, sir."  Legato sighed in relief, leaning into Knives' touch as the man picked him up and held him close.  "Are you ever going to tell me why you don't need to drink water?"

Knives smiled as the suns set over the horizon and the moons rose.  "Of course, Legato," he whispered, his fingers tangled in thin hairs the same shade of the evening sky.  "Don't worry.  I am going to tell you everything."

End _Yesterday's Gone_


	3. Close to You

**And Miles to Go…**  
_Chapter Three: Close to You_  
By Seishuku Skuld (skuldhotohoriyahoo.com)

Series: Trigun  
Pairings: Knives Legato  
Warnings: spoilers for the anime, shounen-ai hints

===========

The days after the destruction of Midway became a blur of sand and sky in Legato's memory. He remembered very little save for the sweltering heat of travel, the gritty taste of the wind, and the warm arms wrapped about him at night.  
  
He did not know how long it would take to reach Knives' destination, nor did he know where it was, for he had already lost himself in the other man's presence. Both by his side and in his mind, Knives watched over him closely, and it was a feeling he had never at all experienced in his childhood, usually being left to his own devices by his mother and father. Gradually the memories of his family began to fade, seeming to him to be of another world altogether, some sort of dream out of which Knives had awakened him. He forgot about his mother and the smell of her kitchen, and the woody fragrance of his father. Of Ismay there remained only a vague memory of her smile. Sometimes he would awaken in the middle of the night, his head cradled on Knives' thigh, the images of her hair and the sounds of her laughter fading in the clinking and the clunking of the automobile they traveled in.   
  
And Knives would tell him it was just a dream.   
  
Legato would smile and nod his head, settling back down as Knives patted him gently. He would curl his fingers about the blue strands of hair, softly telling the child to go back to sleep. The days were long and the nights were short, but Legato slumbered peacefully for the most part, and roused himself every morning with hardly a word, but plenty of smiles.

Knives spoke very little to him over the trip, sparing only a word when he decided he would teach Legato a little more of how to use his abilities. Legato was an avid learner, intelligent and quick to master the tricks Knives taught him. Knives rewarded the child with smiles and pats on the head, and the boy seemed content with that. Legato was a simple creature, easy to take care of yet hardy, and never once did he open his mouth to complain of thirst or of the heat, though Knives would often read his thoughts and lift them right from his mind with the child still unaware.

That was something he did not teach the boy, for he found no use for it yet. Legato knew how to extend himself and touch the minds of others, yet he had not yet tried to shield his own thoughts beyond a putting on a bland expression, and giving off an air of relaxed repose. Such things Knives' keen vision easily pierced through, and even during the extreme discomfort of the heat, when the boy should have been most miserable, his mind was placid, logical, and calm. Legato was not a mass of roiling thoughts and desires as most human trash was apt to be, instead the child was quiet, his thoughts ordered and even in their progression.

Such a wonderful, rare find. Even so, the child was flawed and imperfect, having been born a human with such a short, transient life. Despite the absence of what Knives viewed as primitive human urges, he could not fully accept the boy as anything other than what he was to be trained to become—his little pet. Knives had never had a pet before, though he knew that many humans often subjugated the animals of lesser intelligence. He saw no problem with it certainly, the boy's internal flaw was that he was a lesser being, and were not lesser beings used solely to serve those greater than they?

Legato was seemingly complacent in his relationship, Knives observed during the journey, staying dutifully by Knives' side and never straying far. From the boy's mind he lifted the simple emotions of gratefulness and an odd sort of fondness, something that was closer than he had shared with either of his parents. Something that was different, and perhaps, even stronger than the one he had shared with his sister.

The child's thoughts of his twin dwindled and eventually disappeared as they arrived at Knives' home, and dwarfed by the massive remains of the SEEDs ship that had once traversed the expanse of space, Legato's past had all but become but faraway legend to him. The child's eyes opened wide as they took the lift that descended onto the ship's main deck.

=======

"Wow," Legato breathed, his hands and nose pressed against the glass, staring at the ship partially embedded in the sand, likely the largest thing he had yet seen, "is this where you live?"

"Yes," said Knives lightly resting a gloved hand on the child's shoulder. "This is where we will live from now on."

"What is it?" Legato turned, with a delighted smile. He began to fidget, little feet stepping to and fro, desperately trying to contain his excitement, and moreover, his curiosity. But the elevator descended at its own pace, and Knives' hand kept him steady.

"It's a ship," Knives replied.

"A spaceship?"

Knives looked down at the child sharply, who still seemed to be grinning. "What makes you say that, Legato?"

"I read about them once," Legato answered, "in a book." He grinned and turned back to staring through the glass. "I thought they were just fairy tales," he whispered, "about us all coming from space in ships."

"No," Knives shook his head, moving his hand to the top of Legato's head, "they're true."

"Really?"

"Yes. This is one of the spaceships you came in."

Knives spread his fingers about the blue hair, the span of his hand almost covering Legato's entire head. This child was clever. Knives narrowed his eyes. Perhaps a little too clever. If the child ever knew too much…

"Were you there?"

"Yes," Knives answered. "I was here when I saw you all coming."

He patted the child's head, and let his hand fall back to the boy's shoulder with a reassuring squeeze. He could always dispose of the child, if he proved later to be uninteresting or dangerous. Killing Legato would be a easy task, his mental powers tiny compared to Knives' own Plant abilities. But he was still young, and the young were easily influenced. Especially Legato, who was so eager to learn.

"Did you come from space too?"

"No, I was born to be here."

"Oh," Legato said, accepting that quite simply as fact.

"I will tell you my stories later, Legato."

"Okay!" And the child nearly bounded out of the elevator as it came to a stop and with a muted whoosh opened its doors onto the main deck.

Legato settled in quickly to life with Knives. The first few days the child could not bear to part with him, but Knives quickly told the boy very firmly that he had important things to do and would rather be left alone. After that, Legato did not bother him unless he was called for, which Knives made sure to do at least two or three times a day. He gave Legato his own quarters, and free reign of the most of the parts of the ship. They were mostly empty rooms, but to the boy, they were filled with the wonder of lost technology. Knives found that Legato quickly learned his way about the ship, and once seated for a full day at computer workstation, had picked up basic use of that too. The child was a smart one. Brilliant even, but still a child. Still naïve. He locked Legato out of most of the database, leaving him with only limited control over the ship itself. What knowledge the child needed to know was made available to him, but not much beyond that. Not yet. Knives would fill in the rest of the gaps in Legato's education.

Legato's life on the ship with Knives was not so much different from the way it had been in Midway. Knives would often disappear for most of the day, locked in some obscure part of the ship that Legato did not have permission to enter, and so he was left to amuse himself as best he could. He did not know what Knives did in those hours, but Knives made it plain that was not information he needed to know. He simply assumed Knives was going about his regular business, and though he was curious to know what said business was, he did not ask.

So Legato, most mornings after a short breakfast, would seat himself at the computer console in his bedroom and scan through all the directories available for his perusal, which was already more information that was contained in even the libraries of the seven major cities. Knives had left him history, science, math, and all the knowledge he would have been learning in school and even more. Without complaint, Legato dived into it, studying it over and over again until he knew everything by heart. And when he felt he had an adequate grasp of the concepts, when he had mastered the use of the mathematical formulas, he moved onto new, more complex ones, and so went the process again.

Knives did not approve of idleness and inefficiency, but he did not need to worry about that, for Legato was able to learn quickly from the modules on the computer. There were learning programs for children of all ages, and by the end of his fourth year on the ship Legato had finished all the courses, and knew more than men even twice his age. Then he went onto read more and more texts in the computer's encyclopedia, only stopping during meals for a few short hours of break, or when Knives summoned him.

Knives would not let his protég's powers go to waste, so in addition to the strict educational regimen that Legato had set for himself, Knives was constantly teaching him the finer uses of his power. At this Legato was only slightly more clumsy. Even in his fourth year, for someone with his developed mind, he found it difficult to perform many of the complex tasks that Knives set out for him.

"No!" Knives barked at him one day, as the child fought down a wince. "That box is not heavy for someone of your ability. Stop handling it slowly!"

"I'm trying," Legato said quietly, concentrating on maneuvering a large storage bin that weighed ten times his weight, "but it won't go faster."

"It is a mental block. The box does not obey the natural physical laws for someone of your power. Overcome it."

"I will try."

"No," Knives would correct him harshly. "You will."

It took many long, hard months for Legato to finally override all the mental blocks for his powers, and by the time he was able to fully control his abilities, it was already halfway into the fifth year of his stay on the ship, and he was becoming increasingly aware of himself and the fact that he was no longer a child.

As a boy, Legato had been rather thin and small for his age, but his manhood blossomed quickly. His voice had begun to change shortly after the beginning of his fourth year on the ship, and by his fifth year he had grown to nearly Knives' height. He retained the slenderness of his youth and the beauty of his face, so even through his fifth year and the sixth he looked only like a taller version of his younger self. But there was a seriousness that had settled about his eyes and a dignity with which he had learned to carry himself. There were many things he knew, and while all of it was book-learning, he was keenly aware of his lack of wisdom and experience. But it was that awareness that enabled him to give off the air of a much more sophisticated and older man; he knew his abilities and he knew his limitations, especially when it came to Knives.

Over the years, Knives still made sure he saw Legato at least twice a day, once in the mornings, once in the afternoons to teach the boy the use of his powers, and perhaps once during breaks or at night before the boy went to sleep. There was much that he had taught the child, starting first with the history of humanity's voyage into space, and sparse bits of his own history. It was all colored with Knives' own prejudices, but Legato was young enough to wholly believe him. The planet was filled with human trash, and it was Knives and his brother, Vash's job to exterminate that horrid species. During these times Legato would often think back to his childhood, remembering the jeers and the insults of the other children, and the savagery of the men who had massacred his town. Yes, he agreed. Humanity was a plague. Then…what of himself? This was a question that Legato had always wanted to ask, but had not dared to until sometime in the sixth year of his life on the ship.

"Master," he said, as he sat a workstation on the bridge, "if humanity is to be eradicated, then what will become of me?"

The question had been nagging at him since Knives had first told him of humanity's evil. He himself was human, what was he to do? He had never been able to come to a satisfactory conclusion by himself, so at last he had sought the words of Knives, his master. He was not sure when he had come to think of Knives more as a master than a father or brother, but it must have been the first few times Knives had shown him the power he possessed. He was a Plant, his mental and physical capabilities far surpassing Legato's. He was older, wiser, more experienced, and Legato admired him. Surely with all of that, he earned the title of Master, and deserved Legato's utmost respect and deepest gratitude.

"You too must die eventually, as all mortal things do."

Legato frowned in dismay. "But I want to serve you forever."

Knives smiled and reached out with a hand. Legato got up from his chair and immediately approached him, kneeling so that Knives could place his hand on Legato's head. "You are a human, and like all transient life you will die."

"I don't want to," Legato whispered, feeling tears come to his eyes. To be parted from Knives, not even with all his learning, not even with all the intelligence he possessed, could he fathom such a thing. But he knew it would happen one day. Knives would remain young and he would grow old and weak, before he finally perished. He could already feel it happening with the maturation of his body. He was already approaching Knives' height. His voice had settled into a light tenor. He was no longer the child he had been when he had first come upon the ship, but Knives looked as ever the same as he did when he had first rescued Legato from the heat of the desert. "I don't want to die."

Knives frowned, his fingers closing gently about the blue hairs. So soft, so blue. He would lose Legato one day, but not before the boy had outlived his usefulness. He smiled as his mind devised an interesting plan. The boy was already completely devoted to him, but there was only one way to seal the child's fate for sure. Knives smiled. It was an interesting plan. Perhaps a little disgusting too, but most of all it was interesting. He would enjoy Legato's reactions, and reading the thoughts going through the blue-haired boy's head, which were so plain for him to read.

"You want to serve me forever, Legato?"

"Yes," Legato whispered with a small nod of his head.

Oh, what sweet human sentiment. If only his Vash had taken on more sentimentalities like that towards him, instead of towards that woman. Knives fought the surge of anger and fury that threatened to grow and overwhelm him. He was a superior being. He could control himself. And after three deep breaths, he found that he did.

Knives turned his attentions back to Legato.

"I'm sorry that can't happen," he lied sweetly, his hand shifting from Legato's head to stroke the curve of his cheek. "But we'll just have to make good of our time together." He drew a finger down to the boy's chin where he cupped it and tilted it upward, the curve of his thumb placed right at the bottom of Legato's lower lip. Knives watched with amusement as the color in Legato's face turned a dark shade of pink and the child's breathing missed a beat. Oh, not a child anymore. Legato was becoming a man. He wasn't there yet, but he would be one day, soon. "Won't we?"

"Yes," Legato answered quickly, his heart thumping so loudly he was sure Knives would hear. "I will do my best to serve you, Master."

"And when the time comes how should I reward my loyal servant?"

"I need no reward, Master."

"But if I should see that your action deserves a reward?" Knives leaned close, his hands still firmly, but softly cupping Legato's chin.

"How…however Master wishes, I will be content," Legato breathed as Knives stopped just mere inches from him. He was certain that Knives would be able to hear the beating of his heart and the see the beginnings of desire that had flushed his skin. Any minute now Knives would push him away in disgust for overstepping the boundaries of their relationship.

But Knives did not push him away. Knives only spoke to him kindly, as he had when he had been a child. "Very good," Knives said. "You will please me, Legato."

"I can only hope to live up my master's expectations," Legato breathed. Knives was holding him much closer than they had been when he was a child. This awakened a newer, much more exciting feeling. Was it…?

"You are dismissed."

Legato fought to keep the disappointment from his face and his voice. "Yes, Master." Knives let go, and he dipped his head down. "I apologize for being a bother. I will resume practice of my powers."

"Do that," Knives said, sitting up straight once more in his chair and waving Legato away. "Do not disturb me this evening. I will be busy."

"Yes, Master." Legato bowed and departed the room.

Knives remained in the captain's chair for a few more minutes, a rare and unusual smile on his face. How easily manipulated his Legato was. As well he should be, he had lived with Knives already for over six years, and six years was a long time to…teach a child the appropriate ways of things. Knives did not mind that Legato was nearly his height. Legato might carry himself like a man, but he knew he was not, and he was even less in Knives' presence. This last little bit of training would be the final bit that would make Legato his, irreversibly. Knives smirked, very satisfied with his work thus far. He did not think of his 'work' finding Vash, which was so far much more unsuccessful. There was still time, still plenty of time. Vash would surely bore of humanity soon, and Legato would be coming into full manhood. When that happened, he would be put to the use he had been trained for.

Knives pulled the captain's console closer to him, sliding the small monitor within easy reach. He unlocked everything in the computer's database on the subject and relating to the word "love."

======

Knives found that muted desire very amusing. After the events of that one day, Legato had never ceased to think about it, and he was only marginally successful in preventing unbidden thoughts from coming into his head. He was growing, as all teenagers his age were, and he was quickly becoming sexually aware of himself, and especially of Knives.

Legato had looked up everything in the computer database relating to "love," and when he had found those entries unsatisfactory to his curiosity, he had looked up a related word, "sex." And that had opened up a whole new realm of possibilities he had only previously been tangentially aware of. As far as his biological experiences went, he only knew of "sex" or "coitus" as a form of reproduction. He had found the material fascinating as far as it went with biology, and had thought nothing more of it until Knives had awakened his desire. "Sex" had taken on an entirely new meaning. Apparently it was not only for reproduction, as it could be done with two members of the same sex, it was also for pleasurable recreation. And as far as the stories he read went, it was supposed to be very pleasurable recreation.

Legato knew that sex was impossible with Knives. Knives was certainly desirable in his eyes, a handsome figure, but it was impossible that Knives would want him in return. Such a thought bordered on the ridiculous. Knives would never love him the way that he wanted to be loved. Knives was his Master, and he was his Master's servant. He did what Knives wanted him to do, and he was sure that did not encompass sex. Nevertheless he could not stop thinking about it as he got up every morning and he found himself hard from his dreams the night before, his sheets wet in certain spots. He found it difficult not to touch himself at night as he imagined Knives' strong, naked arms embracing him. It took all his will and concentration not to think those thoughts during the times that he spent with Knives in the training room or on the bridge.

The fact that lately Knives had begun to exhibit signs of interest in him did not help matters. He could not help but feel Knives' gaze sometimes, or feel that there might be some other motive every time Knives drew near. Knives had begun to touch him more, across the shoulders, on the chest, on the cheek. Legato was convinced that a mutual attraction was not possible, or so he stoically told himself over and over again.

He had no worldly experience with the rituals of courtship, but he found himself doing little extra things for Knives. Legato started preparing breakfast for the older man, started staying in the training room longer to hone his powers so that his work might be flawless when Knives came to supervise him again the next day. And through all this he half-expected Knives to reprimand him for his unwanted, dirty desires. But nothing of the sort ever happened, and Knives only grew closer to him, touching him more and more, slipping him a few words of innuendo occasionally.

"What would you like me to do this afternoon, Master?" Legato asked one day during his short break for lunch. Knives had come unannounced and sat with him, watching him eat. Legato sat through the entire meal with his cheeks heated, feeling self-conscious with Knives' eyes on him, apparently studying him keenly.

"Why don't you come," Knives paused, drawing out that last word for emphasis, "to the training room again. I have more things to show you."

"Yes, Master," Legato answered. "I will come when I am finished…with my studies."

"Good," Knives smiled and he reached a hand out, cupping Legato's cheek in his hand. Ever so slightly, he noticed that the boy turned into the gesture. "I will see you then. Do not be late."

"I am never late, Master."

Knives stood and left the room, lifting feelings of joy and sexual excitement from Legato's mind.

Such an easy creature to control. Such a beautifully simple creature.

=====

Legato knew very little of Knives' brother, except that his Master was very keen on finding his twin. Knives had told him many times of what had happened on the SEEDs ship, and Legato could not hold back a sneer at the mention of Rem's name. But Vash had chosen to follow her words, and now where was he? Knives was searching for him certainly, but Knives also had many other things to do.

"I care for my other kin as well," Knives told him one day on the bridge.

Legato's head lay on Knives' thigh, physically and mentally exhausted after an entire morning of training. He had his eyes closed, his breathing slow and even, simply enjoying, basking in Knives' presence, and he subtle scent that floated about the man. He liked the feel of the hands in his hair, the fingers scratching lightly at his scalp.

"Like I care for you, Legato."

"Thank you, Master."

"They enslave them, you know. Those base humans."

"The Plants, Master?"

"Yes," Knives said, shifting his fingers in Legato's hair. "The Plants. My brothers and sisters."

"How may I help you set them free, Master?" Legato leaned into the caress, his eyes still closed. His hands lay on the floor of the bridge at his side, knuckles touching the cool metal. He was comfortable here, more than he could have ever imagined himself to be.

"Do as I tell you to."

"I shall not fail you, Master."

Knives smiled, seeing the fruits of his long years of labor with the boy finally coming to fruition. "And I shall reward when the time comes."  
  
"I want only to serve you, Master."

"You shall serve the both of us, Legato. Vash and I. When I finally find him, he shall see our ways. It is only a matter of time. He will get sick of those humans soon."

Legato stayed quiet. He did not want to serve Vash, he only wanted Knives. He did not know Vash, he was not indebted to him. The man he loved was Knives, and it was here that Legato, still a young man, first felt the first pangs of jealousy. He did not want to share their lifestyle with another, especially one that was spending all this time with humans.

Knives noted the jealousy with interest, but he said nothing. He would have liked to throw Legato to the floor there, and tell him that under no circumstances would he slight Vash with such a sickening human emotion, but he knew that it was not strategically sound for him to give away his ability to read Legato by showing that he could pick the boy's thoughts from his mind.

Let him think what he would without attempting to hide or shield his thoughts. Legato was a boy that must be delicately handled. With the magnitude of his power, he would be able to sense a probe into thoughts he might try to keep hidden. To rip those thoughts from him would take considerable effort. It might break his spirit. And Knives did not want a broken toy. He needed Legato willing to serve to him wholeheartedly and willingly, he did not want a servant dedicated to him out of fear. Fear was a weak motivator and often bred rebellion and mutiny. That was an uncertainty he could deal without. There were still flaws in Legato, but he still had time to condition him properly. Knives smiled at pet Legato again, his hands sliding down the boy's face.

"Are you unhappy, Legato?"

"No," Legato answered quickly. He shook his head slightly, his hand creeping up from the floor. He gently placed it over Knives' fingers, surprised that he dared such an action. "I live to serve you."

"Good," Knives said, allowing his fingers to tighten around Legato's, perhaps symbolic of the strength of the bond that was supposedly between them. "I would have no closer servant than you."

"Thank you," Legato murmured, knowing that it was only a few minutes before Knives would demand that he get up and continue to demonstrate the new abilities he had learned. But the little time he had with Knives he took gratefully, and he was pleased when he noticed that Knives indulged him in few extra minutes.

=====

Legato was eighteen when he received his first kiss from Knives. It was just a small matter, a joining of lips for no more than a few seconds, but it quickly became the blue-haired young man's most treasured memory.

He was now making regular forays into the nearest town for what Knives liked to call 'specimens.' In other words, they were test subjects for Legato's growing powers. In order for him to finely tune his abilities, he needed real humans on which to experiment, and it was once a week that Legato left the ship and came back with a couple of specimens. He had been doing work like that since early his seventh year.

It was in the training room that Knives was teaching him how to, as he put it, "extinguish it completely." It was a difficult task. Despite Legato's contempt for humans, he did find their life force incredibly difficult to kill. It was simple to make one kill itself—smash its own head or dig out its own heart—but to preserve one, completely mindless and obedient but fully physically functional, was hard to do. It required very swift and adept movements on Legato's part, and even then complete success with every human was not guaranteed.

It was not until he was eighteen that he fully mastered the skill, having created a roomful of bodies which he could easily manipulate within the space of a few days. Despite the long months and hard work it took, Knives was pleased.

"How should I reward you for your long effort, my servant?"

"Whatever my master is willing to spare," Legato answered, knowing in his mind what he had in mind already, "I will accept."

Knives saw that wish coalesce and form, a tentative, hesitant thing, but something that Legato greatly desired for a very long time. Knives' suppressed an expression of disgust at the initial thought of it. His little Legato was finally getting beyond innocent touches and caresses. Oh, he would own the boy—body, mind, and soul—by the time he was finished.

Knives smiled, and he knelt down to meet Legato eye to eye. "This is my reward for your years of loyalty." He reached forward and look Legato's chin in his fingers, clasping the boy firmly so that he might not move if he startled. He watched as Legato's eyes grow wide and then close with a flutter as he approached.

Knives pressed his lips to Legato's, the tip of his tongue brushing the bottom of the boy's lips. Legato's mouth opened the slightest, let out a quiet sigh, and then it was over and Knives was once again standing on his feet.

"You still have much work to do, lovely Legato."

"Yes, Master," said Legato, his voice trembling.

"Go."

"Yes." Legato rose to his feet, and keeping his head bowed he walked quickly from the room. Knives did not miss the tear which crept down Legato's cheek and landed on the floor before the boy could catch it with his fingers.

End _Close to You_


	4. You and Me

**And Miles to Go…**  
_Chapter Four: You and Me_  
By Seishuku Skuld

Series: Trigun Pairing: Knives x Legato  
Warnings: The usual  
Date: December 18, 2004

-------

Legato woke one morning and immediately knew that something was wrong. Knives' presence—a lingering whisper that always floated in the back of his mind—was missing. This had happened before, but only on rare occasions. So Legato started off the day with a seed of worry in his heart, wondering if this was another test from his master or whether Knives had truly left him without so much as a word. He moved about his room as he threw off his blankets and dressed, waiting for the automated message that Knives sent him when he went on his trips, but the screen did not so much as flicker and the computer console was silent.

Legato walked about the rest of the ship doing what he usually did most mornings, making himself breakfast and checking the status of the ship's internal sensors, all the while getting more and more worried each passing minute that Knives was absent. His master was gone and hadn't even bothered to leave him a note. That was a first in all the years that Legato had spent with him.

Legato's thoughts, the latent power in the back of his mind seemed unusually loud amidst the rumbling of the ship—the white noise generated by the ship's lights, computer systems, engines, the whirring of the fans that recycled the air. Legato's silverware clattered loudly with his plate as he placed the remains of his meal in the foodservice disposal. There was a brief hiss as the ship's systems whisked his dishes away, and then all was back to the ship's usual amount of humming. He swallowed, and even that seemed oddly loud. Amongst the ship's arch corridors, it's tall ceilings and its bright lights, he was the only thing moving about on the ship. There were no more specimens left in the holding cells, he had disposed of them under Knives' satisfactory eye not three days ago, and even though there were still the plants in the hydroponics bay, they made poor company and did not seem to fill the stillness of the ship.

Legato let out the breath he'd been holding in. He was alone. The thought staggered him.

There had been times when Knives had left him alone in the past. After he deemed that Legato had come of age, Knives occasionally would simply decide to leave, but always with explicit instructions on how far Legato was to progress in the use of his powers and maintain the ship. Knives had always promised he would come back, and Legato had always been content to wait. Most times Knives was only gone for a few days, though he had been known to absent for weeks. Legato had never been lonely in the term of his master's absence. Knives had always left him some sort of purpose, usually to achieve some greater dexterity and control of his powers.

Legato's footsteps resounded in the corridors as the door closed behind him with a whoosh that echoed the length of the long passageway at the center of his wing of the ship. The corridors lights lit as he approached, illuminating his way in discrete steps as he continued to walk forward.

"Bridge," Legato said as he stepped into the lift, his quiet voice seeming to him very loud even through the whirring of the lift's motors.

It was entirely possible this was a test. Legato considered that thought carefully as he ascended the decks of the ship. Knives could very well have withdrawn his presence to observe what his servant would do without orders, though his master had no reason to test him in this manner. Even through all his years at Knives' side, Legato was not fully able to predict his master's moods or temperaments. If this was truly a test then Legato was determined to pass it, as he had done with all of Knives' previous examinations. If this was not—the lift stopped and Legato stepped onto an empty bridge—then he didn't know what to do. There must have been a reason for Knives to abandon him without notice, something very important and very urgent.

Legato sat at his usual console to the right of Knives' seat, a small computer station from which he was able to access nearly all the ship's systems. He placed his hands upon the controls, and immediately the dark panel lit up beneath his fingers, a spreading web of security readings, computer access logs, environmental controls—every crucial system to the ship's ongoing function. Legato spoke evenly to the computer as he scanned the security log from earlier that morning.

"Locate Millions Knives."

"Millions Knives departed at 0502 hours through Shuttle Bay One."

"Trajectory of vehicle."

"Trajectory unknown."

Legato's frown deepened. So his master was gone after all. For him to head off so quickly without even a word at such an early time of morning meant that whatever he was doing was urgent, more compelling than anything Legato had ever seen Knives encounter.

He was about to head down to the deeper bowels of the ship, wondering if he would discover what might have drawn his master away when he noticed the console at the captain's chair, blinking dully. Legato walked over to it and turned the screen facing him. At his touch the monitor came to life, and several small screens opened, none of which Knives had bothered to lock before making his apparently hasty departure. Legato raised an eyebrow in interest. The documents last accessed by Knives were simple government identification dossiers, hacked from the primitive database the rest of the planet used to keep track of their history. Legato noticed two things upon immediate inspection—the supposed lineage of the family whose dossiers reports he was staring at, and that they had come from July City.

Legato drew in a quick breath. They were her descendants; or rather descendants of her close relatives. Rem Saverem. The name left a bitter taste in his mouth. The only discovery that could make Knives drop everything he was doing and rush out of the ship was that his enigmatic twin brother was somehow also seeking them out.

"Vash," Legato whispered, the sound strange to his lips. He could not help the feelings of jealousy that arose within him.

Knives had gone to find his brother, and had left Legato an empty, quiet ship with no instructions, no promises of return…nothing. Gritting his teeth to keep control of himself Legato stood, with a flick of his mental powers he moved the console back into its original place.

There were only two choices that lay in front of him—either he would stay, or he would go immediately. The right one was very clear. This might be the first time that Legato disobeyed the wishes of his Master. This might be the last time Legato did anything. He knew full well what Knives was capable of when angered. Nevertheless, there was no doubt in his mind what he must do. Legato locked down the ship with a swift verbal command, shutting off all non-essential systems. He took the lift to Shuttle Bay One and jumped into the nearest vehicle with enough fuel to take him to all the way to the city of July and back.

Whether or not Knives wanted him to, Legato was going.

-------

Knives had been in shock when Legato had dragged him out of the rubble. There hadn't been much left of Knives to dig out, but as soon as Legato had spotted his master he had been determined to remove him from the ruined city whether not Knives was still alive.

To his immense relief Knives was indeed alive, but it had been no small task for Legato to clear the rubble covering him and carry him to the edge of the city where he had left his vehicle. Being placed inside jolted Knives out of his shock, the first sound that passed his burnt lips a raw, scratchy scream. Legato blanched with the sheer power that emitted from Knives' damaged vocal system, but nevertheless kept his voice calm, pushing down his stomach's natural revulsion at the cry emanating from what looked for all the world like a reanimated corpse.

"Master," Legato said softly, "we must go." He tried not to state the obvious, the fact that there wasn't enough left of Knives for him to be alive according to the biological dictates he had studied as a child. But Knives was indeed alive, and it did not seem like he wanted to leave. "Vash," he moaned, his one eye swiveling in wild circles, never seeming to focus or settle on one particular object before flying to another one.

"He is...not here," lied Legato. He did not know where, or even if, Vash was still left somewhere in the debris, but that fact no longer mattered. Knives needed to be taken back to the ship immediately. "I must get you back to the ship," Legato continued, looking away hastily as Knives' erratic gaze fixed on him.

Oddly, Knives did not complain, but Legato guessed that was probably because Knives had not consciously registered the fact that someone was speaking to him. Legato pushed the ball of fear to the back of his mind and held it there in check, locked away in so many mental barriers Legato doubted he would even be able to find it again when this business was all through.

Knives was…how should he put it, only half there. Half his body had been melted away, bony feathers sprouting from the remaining part of his back, his one arm turned scaly and rigid, a brilliant silver from inside which there seemed to emanate a strange golden glow. This arm held another arm, one still wrapped in what looked like black leather, slowly bleeding from the end of a severed stump. Knives seemed to be cradling it to the remains of his chest, his fingers wrapped about it in a vice-like grip. Legato had tried to pry it from Knives' clutch, but Knives would not let go, so reluctantly he let his master keep it.

Knives' flesh was burnt and seared; some of it had turned to ash and fallen on Legato's white coat in the process of transporting Knives from the center to the edge of city. He did not know what he had been thinking when he had taken Knives from the wreckage of July; all he had known was that Knives was not dead. Legato did what he could, even daring to touch the very surface of Knives' mind and ease some of the pain. He could not take very much, but he took as much as his mind let him. That stopped most of the screams, and thereafter Knives only cried out occasionally in moans that sounded suspiciously like the name of his brother. He seemed to be subject to fits and long, silent depressions alternating with short manic periods full of screaming. Then his body would shake so much that it would splatter Legato with blood and ash. But Legato could do nothing but take him back to the ship in his vehicle, which did not offer the smoothest of rides as it crossed the giant dunes separating the ruined the city and their hidden ship.

Knives was jostled around a bit as he leaned against the far side of the door, exposing his blackened, charred flesh to Legato, who noted with no small amount of worry that small bits were constantly cracking off and falling onto the seat. Legato worried that not enough of his master would survive the journey.

Knives never spoke to him at all during the trip, the only sounds from him the screams or the name, "Vash." Legato grit his teeth, partly for the pain, and partly for the anger that he harbored for Knives' twin. He did not know exactly what had transpired in July for he had arrived just before the city was destroyed, his own powers barely saving himself by deflecting the rubble from the tremendous blast. No one other than a being matching Knives' power could have been able to do something like that to his master, and the hatred for Vash grew within Legato's heart every time Knives uttered the name.

Legato somehow managed to pull Knives into the ship two days later. Even before the shuttle bay door had started closing Legato was out of his seat with his master in his arms, carrying him through the hatch that sealed them off from the rest of the planet. Legato hesitated then, for there were still many vital areas of the ship that Knives had never opened up to him, including the medical bay which was the first place that Legato thought of bringing his master.

"Engine room," Knives managed, his lips twisting with the words as Legato carried him down the main corridor, making for the lift to the lower levels.

"You need rest, Master," Legato answered quickly, his stomach plummeting at the thought of just exactly now much rest Knives needed. "I'll take you to the medical bay."

"Engine room," Knives spoke again, his mouth moving slowly, the words barely coherent between his rasping breaths as he leaned into Legato's shirt, leaving blackened trails of dust and dark stains of blood. He had never repeated an order before.

There was a moment of indecision before Legato nodded once. "Yes, Master." His mind had formed a preliminary hypothesis as to why Knives needed the to be with ship's engines instead of in the infirmary, so he did not voice any further hesitations as he made his way down the ship's dim corridors as fast as his legs would carry him. Legato did not have access to the lowest levels of the ship where Knives resided, so when the door refused him entry he simply forced them open.

It was another few hours before Legato had Knives installed in the engineering section of the ship. The Plant lay encased in the same glass as the other plants that lined the room. There had been no empty bulbs of the size that Knives had needed, so Legato had to empty one for him. That had required taking out its previous owner, which he had done quickly and efficiently.

"Leave me," Knives rasped finally when the readings on the console had stabilized.

"Master, I cannot—"

"Leave me!" Knives commanded, his one good eye wide open and staring at Legato angrily. "Go!" It was the second time that Knives had had to repeat himself.

Legato bowed reluctantly. "I will return in a few hours."

"You will return when I summon you."

"Yes, Master."

-------

Despite having had no rest for four days, Legato woke earl yin the morning and headed down immediately to the engineering deck. Knives' section of the ship was in total disarray. Metal doors, whole bulkheads and sections of the wall lay strewn about the corridor, twisted and mangled nearly beyond recognition.

The door to the engine room slid open smoothly at Legato's approach. He walked quietly down the long aisle lined with Plant bulbs, each emitting a dull glow overshadowed only by Knives, who lay at the furthest end of the chamber. Knives was asleep, or at least appeared to be so, for his one eye was closed and his body lay unmoving. The ash had completely fallen off his body and the bleeding had ceased. What remained of him seemed to Legato less frail and less pale than before.

"Master," Legato said, sinking to one knee in front of the giant glass casing, "tell me what I must do to ease your pain."

"Master," he said, striding across the room and sinking to one knee in front of the giant glass case. "Tell me what I must do to ease your pain."

::There is nothing you can do for me right now, Legato.::

That was the first time that Knives spoke directly into Legato's mind, his voice firm, smooth like silk and absolutely compelling. Even if he were given the choice, Legato knew he would never disobey that voice.

"There must be something…"

::Nothing!:: The voice boomed in Legato's mind, the raw in emotion shaking the fragile fringes of his consciousness. Legato felt the first tendrils of helplessness and fear grip him. His breath stopped, and his eyes grew wide as the very edges of his shields began to evaporate.

Then it was over and Knives stopped his assault, leaving Legato shocked and frightened. Never had he seen or felt such uncontrollable rage in his master, and never had Knives ever seized him in such a manner, even when his master had been furious. Legato remembered to breathe again, and he crumpled to the ground clutching the sides of his head, barely able to comprehend how close Knives had come to destroying him utterly.

::I will summon you again when I need you,:: came the voice again, this time firm and even, without any trace of the fury of just a few seconds before.

"Yes…master," Legato replied, his voice hardly a whisper. This was the first time that Knives had truly frightened him. His mind was cold ice, frozen and still, his thoughts having trouble coalescing amidst the pounding of his heart. Nevertheless, he was reluctant to leave his master. Knives was in a worse state than he, having lost half his body. That thought jolted Legato from his shock and he pulled himself back up to his feet. "If you need anything…"

::I will call,:: Knives said, and said no more.

Legato nodded his acquiescence and left, knowing that Knives was already on the way to healing, and that he only be a hindrance to this process if he stayed.

-------

Legato spent the subsequent days alone, trying to fill the hours with work to take his mind off Knives' condition. He had tried many times to enter into the Plant chamber to make sure that Knives was doing all right, but all times the computerized door refused him entry, and he'd had no choice but to turn back to his own section of the ship and find something to whittle away the hours.

He was productive at first, re-reading all of what little the ship's computer database had on Plant biology (it did not tell him anything useful), and spent the rest of the time working to strengthen his powers. Even cleaning up the debris he had created when rushing Knives down to the engineering deck had filled only half a day. As the days turned into weeks, Legato realized there were simply no things he wished to do other than be with his master, but the wounded Plant had given him orders not to be disturbed unless under dire circumstances. He had made it clear that he did not require Legato until he was summoned.

Legato was thankful his master did not comment when just a few weeks after the July incident, his desperation became unbearable and he moved his things into a room on the same deck as Knives' engine room. It had originally been a small room for the ship's engineers to take small breaks during their long night shifts, but Legato had decided to take up residence there. He had no possessions to speak of save his clothes and his bedsheets, all of which had been relocated in only one trip.

It was here that Legato first heard his master speak to himself in periods of madness, and at night he would often wake to Knives' screams as the entire ship shook with the force of his anger. His voice was loud enough to travel through the metal doors that served as the entrance to the vast engine room, sharp enough even to penetrate the walls that lay between him and his servant. In those times Legato would rush out of bed hardly dressed and he would press himself against the door which never opened for him and hope, beg, and pray that Knives' fit would soon pass.

Yet other times, Legato would wake to a piercing sense of urgency that twisted his insides and made him want to roll over and retch. The aching loneliness that followed would propel him off the floor and into the corridor, stumbling toward where Knives lay moaning his brother's name over and over again. The door would open for him then, and it was not rare that it would be days before he would emerge from the room again, his head ringing so loudly that the whisper of "Vash" wouldn't disappear from his senses for days on end.

One night, Legato was about to lie down for a few hours of sleep when Knives summoned him, a sharp stab into his mind that made him jump involuntarily, his heartbeat accelerating wildly. Reeling out of bed from the sudden disorientation, Legato made his way into the corridor. He recovered quickly from the nausea of Knives' sudden intrusion by supporting himself on the door frame and stubbornly telling his own body and mind to get used to the feeling.

He closed his eyes as the world stopped spinning, and he calmed enough to reach his mind forward in Knives' direction. Knives always met him halfway, for Legato dared not approach his Master's mind without explicit permission, and even then he dared not come too close. He formed a link with Knives after feeling his master reach out to him, grasping that proffered bond with eager firmness.

::Master,:: Legato said through their connection, his mind outwardly calm. He already knew what Knives needed—merely his presence—and he was happy to give that, though he knew somewhere in the dark recesses of his mind that it was someone else that Knives wanted.

The doors opened smoothly as he stepped into the engine room, hastily making his way down the narrow aisle, not even sparing a thought for the other Plants that lined his path. Legato ascended the small steps which led to the platform Knives rested on. He pressed himself against the glass, his hands spread wide to bask in the warmth that radiated from his master. He placed his cheek against the glassy curve of the bulb's surface and smiled. The feeling reminded him of a time long ago, before he had been born, when the only thing he had known was warmth.

::I am here, Master.::

Knives sent no more through their connection and the desperation and loneliness in the back of Legato's mind faded away to mere memory. Legato let out a soft sigh and closed his eyes. He was not yet adept at hiding his own feelings, or those of devotion and adoration for his master. Legato seemed to be completely oblivious the small grin on his face, and Knives did not say a word to his precious protégé about it.

With his eyes closed, Legato missed the smirk on Knives' lips. It disappeared when Legato opened his eyes, gazing with worry at his master's maimed form, none the wiser for what expression had just passed his master's face.

-------

Every morning after his meal, Legato would visit the medical bay where Knives had ordered him to keep a close eye on that arm. It had been lying on the specimen table for several weeks untouched. Legato would have liked to think it's previous owner had perished in July, but the tenacity which Knives had clung to his desire was more than enough of a sign that Vash was still alive out there, somewhere. Half the ship's medical scanning equipment was trained on the, programmed to alert Knives and Legato if something went awry. Months had passed, and Legato had not even seen it twitch, or the machines give so much as a peep.

The computer readouts told him there was nothing usual about the arm. It was simply an arm. A cursory examination of its cellular composition showed that it did not differ much from cells of typical human constitution, but a more detailed investigation revealed that while the cells certainly looked human, there was something fundamentally different about them. Legato had a hard time pinning down exactly what it was. The cellular structures were identical and they still served identical functions. There was just more activity; a flurry of activity in fact. Activity that happened regardless of whether the arm got its proper nutrients. What the computer equipment did not realize that was very plain to anybody who saw it lying there, was that the arm had been severed for quite some time, and was still managing to remain alive.

Legato's eyes narrowed as he looked away from the computer screen to stare at the pale thing lying on the table next to him. His eyes traced the contours of the scars, some long and ugly wrought with hidden metal implants, others small and pink, barely detectable to the naked eye. A million scars, representing a million questions—scars with memories and experiences. They couldn't not possibly have come from whatever had sundered the arm from its previous owner—they seemed too old for that—so they have come from whatever human scum Vash was always mingling with.

Legato curled his lip in distaste. He did not understand why Knives' twin insisted on mixing with very people who had given him those scars. If just his arm looked like that, Legato shuddered to imagine how scarred the rest of Vash's body must be. Like Knives before the accident, Legato was untouched, his body smooth and untainted by any human hand. He thought back to his mother and sister, dim but detailed memories in his mind. He was no more connected to them than he was to the piece of machinery he sat in front of, but nevertheless he did feel lingering feelings for them, a fondness for Ismay's kind smile and the smell of his mother's cooking. They were to him some fantasy, some dream that he had awakened from long ago, but one that he would never forget no matter how much he tried. He could not forget how the human men had touched them, how the blood had stained their dresses, and how they had died. He could not forget the terrible cruelty, and he did not forget what may have happened to him if his powers had not manifested themselves.

Why did Vash not abandon them?

Legato did not understand, and the arm yielded him to answers just lying on its table in the flood of the computer's too-bright light. He sat and contemplated it as he was often wont to do in the mornings, but as usual all he got was only more questions. It was heading on into noon before Legato sighed and took one last look at it, curiosity blooming within him. At the moment he had things to attend to, but perhaps he would return later in the day and take a closer look.

-------

::Master,:: Legato whispered, one night. He had already spent one night and one day by Knives' side, pressed flush against the glass, the closest that he would ever get to his master. He ached to crawl inside the bulb and set himself beside his master, to touch him softly, to hold him, to bask in that warm glow, and know that he was truly blessed. ::I want to be closer to you.::

There was long moment of silence. Legato had given up and figured his master was asleep before a reply came.

::There are a few ways,:: Knives said.

::What are they?::

Another long pause.

::They will come to you if you think about them, Legato.::

Legato frowned. Nothing came.

::Be patient.::

::Yes, Master.::

::You are dismissed.::

Legato opened his mouth to protest, to tell his master he liked being here, but he dropped that thought quickly and shut his mouth. Knives was never pleased when his orders were questioned. After all, Knives had long since stabilized and had kept Legato around for half a day more than Legato had originally anticipated staying.

"Yes," he whispered, rising from the glassy bulb and shivering slightly at how cold the air seemed to be after Knives' pleasant heat. He walked out of the engine room, wondering when Knives would summon him next. Sometimes his master would call him twice a day, other times the silence would stretch on for days or weeks before Knives would contact him again. In the meantime, Legato resolved to solve the question. On the way to the training room that afternoon, Legato stopped by the medical bay again. As usual all was quiet.

-------

Legato rolled the chair over to the operation table once more and stared at the arm, naked, pale, sterilized. He could not quite find it in him to believe in what he was about to do. It had occurred to him not two days ago when he had been passing by the infirmary on his way to the lower levels of the ship. It had been an elegant solution, so simple that he wondered how and why it hadn't occurred to him before.

His master did not push him. It did not matter whetherhe did it today or tomorrow. It was already inevitable, and Legato would do it when he was ready. Was he ready today? He had made all the preparations.

::This is my gift to you, faithful Legato,:: Knives said, touching his mind with tenderness, a soft caress that made Legato shiver. ::Did you not say you wished to serve me forever?::

::I did, Master, and I still do.::

Legato stared at the laser sitting on the table, within reach of his right hand. He could not admit that he was afraid, that was a weakness that Knives would not tolerate. He must not be afraid. To be unsure and uncertain, that was all right. But he must never fear. Legato took a deep breath and calmed himself. He had suffered much worse pain when he had shared in Knives' suffering transporting him back to the ship, this would be nothing.

There was no going back now, no room for mistakes.

Legato removed his shirt, lifting his two arms up over his head and peeling the piece of cloth from him. He tossed it on another table behind him and took a deep breath.

Knives spoke to him once again. ::When you are finished, you must bind the wound. It will regenerate itself into you.::

::Yes, Master.::

Wiping all thoughts from his mind, Legato took the laser in his hand and turned it on to full strength. Here was the moment of absolute concentration, where he'd have to count on all his courage to pull him through.

He lifted the edge of the laser to his skin, and immediately felt it prickle, saw smoke rising from the blackened skin. He clamped his mouth shut, grinding his teeth to keep from the scream he instinctively felt must be coming, but as he slid through the first few layers of flesh, he felt no desire to cry out. He kept his hand steady as he continued, the instrument slowly burning its way through his flesh, thankful for the strong analgesic he had injected himself with. Sweat beaded on his forehead, as his hand moved calmly slicing through muscle and into bone.

Blood was leaking, pouring from his wound, falling over his clothes and staining the cloth covering the operating table, but still he kept going, half his mind marveling at the way his flesh oozed blood, at how pink and soft it seemed to be, how grey his bones were. Half of him recoiled in disgust, appalled at how he could be severing his own limb with such clinical detachment.

Knives was lost, buried away somewhere in the back of his mind, unreachable and perhaps not wanting to touch him in his endeavor. This was another of Knives' tasks, another one of his tests. Legato had passed them all so far, so he knew he could do this one. This was the ultimate test that would prove that all the years that Knives had trained him and cared for him had been well spent.

Legato finished the bone and once more the laser went into flesh. He was losing blood too rapidly, the red liquid having soaked through the table and dripping onto the floor. His hand was already drenched, no all three. He was having trouble holding onto the laser because it was becoming slippery, but he was almost through. The laser slid easily through the last of his flesh, through his skin, and then it was finished, and his left arm fell to the floor of the infirmary with a wet slopping sound. The laser fell with it, as Legato's loose fingers dropped it.

He stared for a moment at how perfectly clean the cut was, how smooth and unlike any amputations he had ever seen previously. Lost in a daze, he looked to the arm on the table, wet with his own blood, and picked it up with red-stained fingers. It was heavy and larger than his own, but he had no time to contemplate that now.

He placed it flush against his wound and screamed, completely unprepared for the pain of severed nerves inflamed by the sudden contact of flesh against flesh. Legato gasped, his mouth opening in agony. How could the painkiller have failed? His left arm quivered uncontrollably, and Legato watched aghast as the arm itself seemed to transform, the skin turning into liquid and crawling up to his shoulder with all the pain as if it had been set on fire. Time slowed as Legato toppled from his seat, in the throes of so much pain he could hardly move. His throat had gone dry and hoarse and still he was screaming as the fire spread across his body, leaving no part of him untouched. It seemed almost an eternity before Legato's mind clawed its way to consciousness, mobilizing his body enough to grab a roll of bandages that had fallen from the operating table. The intense pain had subsided, and though the agony still pervaded his senses, he found himself at least able to move. The arm had ceased to shift and change, and he found himself with an ugly red scar where the limb had joined his stump. He grasped the bandage with the fingers of his own hand, digits that responded slowly and dumbly to his commands, finally able to tear off a strip and wrap it around his arm.

Sleep was long in coming to him as Legato lay on the floor of the infirmary, having exhausted the last of his strength. He slept for two days as the puddle of blood dried into his hair, turning it a dark, matted black. He dreamt of a childhood that was foreign to his own, he of looking out windows that stretched into a near-endless blackness punctuated only by the pinpoint light of stars. He dreamt he loved the crimson hue of germaniums, and that he had once loved and lost a woman whose dark hair and kind smile stirred such feelings of happiness that he could not but help break out into smiles whenever she turned her laughing face to him. He dreamt of crashing into a planet, of feeling the heat of atmospheric entry through the hull of the ship, watching in disbelief as similar ships were torn asunder in a great cataclysmic explosion.

When Legato finally awoke, he found that the pain had eased enough that it was only a dull pain. He tried moving the arm, but it refused to obey his command. Nevertheless, he could feel that it was still alive and that it was making itself a part of him. He blinked the sleep from his eyes and sat up, his left side feeling heavier than it had before. Dried blood caked the floor and the operating table, but nevertheless he stumbled out, his skin and clothes stained an unpleasant brown. Legato smiled as he made his way to the engine room, remembering his triumph and the dreams he had seen. They were a part of him now, almost as real as he had experienced it himself.

::Well done.:: Knives touched his mind once more, his mental gesture soothing the lingering doubts in Legato's heart. He quieted the turbulent waters of Legato's mind and he brought them close, caressing his servant.

Legato entered the engine room, his uncertain steps carrying him to the far end where the largest and most glorious of all the Plants lie in wait for him. Knives was regenerating, but slowly. Years, perhaps, it would take for him to regain his old strength. Legato fell in front of it, his right hand coming up to embrace the glass. He rested his cheek on its surface.

::Thank you, Master.::Legato said before he fell to the side and succumbed to another deep slumber.

-------

Legato woke again from a fitful sleep of strange dreams of his Master and hauled himself to his feet. It appeared to him that Knives too was slumbering, for he received no greeting or acknowledgement that he was awake. Not knowing what else to do, Legato made his way down the length of the room, through the rows of faintly glowing Plants. They were dimmer than he remembered previously, and he could see through their light and make out the figures inside. They piqued his tired curiosity, but the fatigue won out and he stumbled out the door, wishing his master good dreams.

He did not remember how he made it through the few corridors to his own chamber, but somehow he did with a dead weight at his side and blood still caking his pants and his hair. He peeled himself of his clothing and collapsed into the shower, sitting on the cool floor tiles as warm water rushed over him, plastering dark hair to his forehead and neck. The water in the shower ran dark red, flakes dislodging from his skin and floating down the drain. He did not know how long he sat there, his back against the wall, his head bent over as he leant forward and simply let himself be covered in water. He might even have fallen asleep, or he might have just been lost in empty thought.

Legato moved again when the water had run clear for long time. He stared at his left arm, the wound still covered in a bandage, which had eerily been the only part of him not covered in dried blood. He knew he should exchange the bandage for a fresh one for fear of infection, but all he could do was simply stare at it, not sure if the thin ribbony grin he had glimpsed beneath it had been part of his dream. It had attached itself the moment he had pressed it to his freshly severed stump, but nevertheless he could not discount the fear that it had all been a dream, and within a few days his body would reject the foreign limb. Perhaps it would simply fall off.

Screwing up his courage and closing his eyes, he moved his good arm, his one and only arm, and brought its fingers to wrap about the very edges of the tape that held the gauze together. He ripped it away cleanly, biting his lip to hold back the scream that never came. Beneath the bandage was new skin, an even red line between his old flesh and his new one, a little shiny in the light of the bathroom and soft to the gentle touch of his fingers, exactly as it had looked when he had first wrapped it in bandages and passed into blessed sleep. It did not feel like something foreign, though he knew it was.

Legato sat for many long hours with water pouring continuously from the showerhead, washing his hair back to it usual blue sheen and cleansing his skin back to its pale pallor. He caressed his new hand, trying to accustom himself to its weight by his side, to its feel beneath his fingers. It did not yet respond at all to him, but he was relieved that it was able to support its own weight. He brought the arm up slowly and hit the button to shut off the shower water. The arm landed back on the tile, twisted to the side. Legato didn't have the energy to move it back into place.

-------

When he was not by Knives' side the next few days, Legato explored his arm. He would touch it gingerly, puzzled that it responded, that he felt his own fingers tracing its skin. The scars on it seemed brighter to him than usual, rivers of pink tissue branching into smaller rivers, on and on and on, crisscrossed, intersecting, running without a beginning and without an end. It was hideous and beautiful at the same time, testament to both the strength and the weakness of its previous owner.

He pressed his lips against the underside of the wrist, gently biting around the rope-like tendons. The sensation was sharp, clear, and strong. It made him shiver. Here the skin was undamaged, untarnished, and surprisingly smooth. He kissed it, marveling at the blue Y-shaped vein, which had in only a matter of days regenerated and integrated into his own circulatory system. Their blood was mingled. Vash was a part of him.

Legato stared, still amazed that such a thing was possible.

He spread the fingers out wide, the hand obeying his command. He placed his hands together by the palm, observing the strange asymmetry. Vash's was hand larger than his, more ungainly, the fingers thick and full of little scars, so unlike the creamy pale skin of his own slender fingers. But there was a power in Vash's hand, in the large-boned palm, there was a power in his grip that Legato did not possess. Perhaps it was the years that Vash had weathered, or perhaps it was the harshness of the sun and the sand and the scarcity of water. Or perhaps Vash was just different, a superior breed than that of Legato's own, an inherent balance that could not be tipped.

Legato stared more at the hand as he lay it on the table beside his own. It had the full range of sensation his own arm had, and it was even more sensitive to temperature, to touch. To pain. He bit into it, and it tasted different. The sharp sting in his mind that told him he was drawing blood was different from the sting biting into his right arm. It was all just…strange. Odd.

Something belonging to someone else entirely had been grafted onto his body, and there it seemed pleased to settle. It had already adapted to his function. It would swing when he walked, as his old arm did and was not ungainly. Though it was physically larger and possessed more muscle than his old arm, it did not feel heavier as he would have expected it to. Save for the red line just above the elbow where Vash's arm joined him, there was no physiological indication that the arm had not belonged to him all along.

The arm lay innocently beside his, no sign of rebellion. No sign that anything untoward had happened to it. It simply acted like this was where it had always been. A part of Legato.

Legato stared at it rose from his seat. The arm helped him push the chair back under table, responding naturally to his commands.

::It is your own,:: said Knives, voice interjecting smoothly into his thoughts as if he too, had always been there. ::It is my gift to you.::

::Yes, Master,::Legato replied, closing his eyes and sucking in a breath as Knives sent him a feeling of warm reassurance. The pleasure of it faded as Knives receded, but Legato held onto it for as long as he could before it flickered out entirely, leaving him once more dull, tired, and with another man's limb.

He had to learn to treat it as his own. Otherwise, he knew, he would never be able to master it fully, nor unlock its secrets.

Legato looked at it again, holding both arms out before him. A bizarre thing, this arm, he mused, but just another thing to add to his already growing list of eccentricities. Blue hair, golden eyes, another man's arm.

-------

Legato woke one morning to Knives' summons. Knives had begun to call him more frequently, oftentimes in the middle of the night or right before the crack of dawn. He never gave the young blue-haired a man a reason for waking him, but Legato never questioned his Master, not even the day that Knives shook so violently in his pod that Legato feared the fragile glass would crack or shatter, spilling his beloved master onto the ground. He failed to imagine what would have happened then, as the mere concept of losing Knives, of the man sliding ungracefully in a half-burned, broken lump onto the floor was ungraspable to him. He had pressed himself as tight as he could to the bulb then, as if by merely being close to his Master he could quell the quaking. And it had worked, much to his relief and pleasure.

So when Legato was wakened by Knives' voice he did not hesitate to fling the covers aside and stumble immediately to the floor. Legato fell hard, the sudden rush of the ground in his vision unexpected. Only by his instincts did he save himself a worse fall by catching his weight on his arms.

::What is the matter?:: came Knives' voice sharply, no doubt having sensed the sudden alarm in his servant.

::I …I fell, Master.::

Legato did not need to the wait for the sharp rap of Knives' displeasure.

Legato was not supposed to fall. He was surprised himself as he stared at his dull, mottled reflection in the metal floor panel, he was not a clumsy man. Quite the contrary, he believed, for he had mastered the eloquence, intelligence, and grace as befitting a servant of his Master. He did not fall. He did not stumble, and this was the first time since his childhood that he felt his knees smart. It was a much smaller pain than that he had felt before, but nevertheless the sensation caught him off his guard.

He moved a leg to bring himself up from the floor and fell again, once more catching himself only with his hands.

Legato's breath caught with surprise but he did not panic. He kept his mind still and quiet as it made its way down the logical routes of thought accustomed to.

::What has happened?::

Legato swallowed, forcing his mental voice into a semblance of calmness. ::I cannot feel my feet, Master.:: He was aware how foolish he sounded. His limbs had fallen asleep before, often when his body would maneuver itself into a strange position during his slumber or when he could sit a little strangely in front of the computer console for extended periods of time. But there had always been the pins and needles, the prickling of his flesh as blood slowly worked its way back into his system, but there was nothing there. His feet were dangling from his ankles, useless lumps of flesh. If he was in fact wiggling his toes, he couldn't tell. He wasn't feeling anything from them.

Perhaps he'd slept in a strange position, though he could think of no position that would incapacitate both. Or perhaps…

::I see,:: Knives' voice broke into his thoughts, his tone calmly neutral.

Legato waited, but no further response came. Knives seemed to be contemplating something. Whether or not there was a serious problem with him, Knives' silence reminded him why he was awake in the first place. Legato took a deep breath and opened his eyes, hauling himself determinedly to his feet, though he could not feel them. He stood and found that he didn't fall over so as long as he leaned against the wall. He took the first cautious step, trusting that his feet would not respond but would nevertheless carry his weight. He limped awkwardly down the corridor to Knives' chamber where the man was waiting.

His stomach rumbled along the way, having recovered from its plummeting trip. It decided that it was hungry, but Legato told it to wait until the appropriate time for a meal.

Later that day, Legato found his meal to be more gratifying than usual.

End _You and Me_


	5. Stars and Pieces

**And Miles to Go…**  
_Chapter Five: Stars and Pieces_  
By Seishuku Skuld (skuldchan a gmail com)  
Series: Trigun  
Pairing: Knives/Legato, implied Knives/Vash  
Warnings: shounen-ai elements  
Date: September 2006

Special Thanks to Asphodel for her time and her beta.

-----

It was hot and sunny, not unlike all the other days since the landing of the humans on the barren sand-swept planet. It was a day very similar to the one when he had fled his home and also like that day, he was once again traveling alone. The winds on this part of the vast planet blew mercilessly both during the day and at night, and had it not been for the thin threads of his power he wove about his eyes he would not have been able to see through the thickness of the storm.

The city was almost deserted, doors and windows on every building barred shut against the wind. Few figures wandered in the street, mostly drunks and beggars, thick scarves wrapped so tightly about their faces that they must have sensed his presence rather than seen it.

He had grown accustomed to having that effect on people: all heads inevitably turned in his direction whenever he entered a town. The women didn't dare take their eyes off him, and the men stared suspiciously, pondering the portents of a man with blue hair and trying to recall dim memories of an old legend from a ghost town far away. Babies cried as he approached, loud and pitiful wails in the hush that accompanied him everywhere—a smoke that always hung about his head, cloaking him in conspicuity. Amidst the sudden silence his mind always perceived something else—a whirlwind of pathetic babble, a swirling sea of emotion. Fear, loathing, sexual attraction. All meaningless. He picked up snatches of thought as he passed by the wide-eyed gawkers in the street, picking them out of the air as if they were overripe fruit about to fall from a tree.

And when he would leave, as he always did with short notice, he would extend his mind magnanimously with a smile and wipe clean the thoughts of the women whose mouths were open. He would wash the entire town of his memory, and as he approached the outskirts of the last homely buildings on his way out, the town would return to business as usual, without ever knowing he had been there, or that he had ever existed. And if he was feeling generous, he would wipe them all blank, down to the tiniest thought and smallest desire. Those were the towns the wind blew through, finding cracks in the clay and wood, banging the shutters and drawing a sandy blanket over the live corpses lying on the ground, some still twitching while others were only empty shells with beating hearts.

Legato walked into the saloon, the only building without its entry barred shut. Inside was a motley crew of criminals and vagrants, evil-looking wanders waiting to prey on unsuspecting travelers seeking shelter from the storm. They eyed him suspiciously, taking in every last detail from his golden eyes to his clean, white coat and his earth-colored boots. One man in the darkest corner considered taking him at gunpoint. The main group of gamblers considered poisoning his drink, and the fat bartender considered taking him to the back storeroom and enjoying him in private.

Unfazed by the leering faces around him Legato sat himself down at a table near the center of the room. He did not need to watch people with his eyes, but nevertheless he let his gaze wander from the table of cards to the bottles of drink behind the counter. Knives disapproved of such human vices as gambling, prostitution, and drinking, but he did not approve of humans in general, and viewed every aspect of their behavior with contempt. Legato was not allowed to drink while on the ship even though alcohol had very little effect on his body, but Knives tolerated it on his trips.

Legato ordered a glass of scotch from a waitress who eyed him saucily. She bent over to show him her cleavage when she returned with the drink, licking her lips suggestively but he paid no attention to her and sipped his drink, counting all the surreptitious glances thrown in his direction. This was unstimulating, boring work, but Knives had ordered it done. Knives was no longer in any condition to travel, and Legato willingly performed whatever his master's bidding was, no matter how odious the task. So he sat in his chair and waited for something interesting to happen—as his senses told him it would—and he thought of Knives and how much he wished to be home, bathed in the light of Knives' pod, his face pressed close to the glass, lips pressed to warm, hard smoothness in an almost-kiss that was but a pitiful of shadow of what Knives had once granted him.

-----

That first day Legato had barely been able to stumble to Knives before falling to his knees in front of his master's disapproving stare.

He lifted his head and waited for an answer.

:So it is as I suspected.:

Legato's heart sank into the pit of his stomach. :What, Master:

:You are not a suitable host.:

Legato's insides plummeted, twisting themselves in strange positions. He wanted to vomit, and he was beginning to find it very difficult to breathe.

:What will happen now, Master:

Knives seemed to smile coldly, though his expression had hardly changed. :Your body will continue to fight the foreign graft. And as it loses, as it inevitably will, you will lose more and more of your physical sensation.:

:Everything:

:With time: Knives replied clinical detachment. :It has already begun. Your somatosensation will disappear first. I do not know about the other modalities. It will be a test of your strength.:

Never in his life had Legato wanted to die more than now, even more than that memory of lying in the sun and sand years ago. He wanted to stop his own heart or crush himself into pieces and let the blood that spilled from his body spell out the ways he loved Knives. But his despair was still second to his love, and it paled in comparison to the swelling of his breath as he looked up to see Knives smiling at him compassionately, willing him to overcome the barriers of his human flaws. To die at his master's feet would mean that his humanity had defeated him, and that he would no longer be there to watch over his master as he healed or restore him to power. He had earned Knives' tutelage but not his affection save for a few, fleeting moments of fancy. He would persevere, wait for the day when Knives might finally touch him again, even if he wouldn't be able to feel the warmth or the pain.

With a deep breath Legato pulled himself to his feet, using his powers to steady himself.

:I understand, Master: he said. :I will continue to serve you in whatever manner you require of me.:

:Good: Knives responded with satisfaction, gifting Legato with a mental caress that sent a spark of elation through him. :You can still feel a few things.:

:Yes, Master.:

:Do not be defeated, dearest Legato.:

:I will not.:

And from then on Legato learned to properly conceal his emotions. No longer did the looks of innocent ecstasy or wide-eyed curiosity cross his face. He fought the battle inside him, the instinct to live and the desire to become the object of Knives' affection warring with the heaviness of the arm he carried at his left side.

He strode from the room with determination, his mind moving his feet with every step, pulling them along and lifting them one in front of the other. He faltered, he stumbled, but he did not fall.

-----

Her story was not unlike many other tales of personal tragedies, though she often fancied that it was unique and that she herself was special in some sort of way. Since mankind's unfortunate landing on the poor desert planet her forefathers had ingeniously set up business. Black blood had run in her family for generations, and not even the thirst or the dry winds had been able to keep that blood from running thicker and thicker as time passed. They had started out with a better lot than most; they'd built their own house and struck water early on, using that at first to start their business. In that respect, she had begun no different from any other rich man's daughter—she had grown up with a life of plenty, though she had also learned at a young age how to protect that.

Sometime during her grandfather's reign as patriarch of the family, the town had finally seized their well, getting some local militia and incorruptible police officers to go along with their plans, and their monopoly of the water was ended. By that time however, the family was already running a number of disreputable establishments, in addition to several reputable ones. The family had spread throughout the town and had their hands dipped in virtually everything from vehicular repair to the scientists looking after the Plants, there were few personnel rosters that did not include at least one member of Di Luca lineage.

Her father had not been quite as clever as his father, and instead of choosing to run something warm and friendly like a restaurant, her father had chosen the casino. Andrea Di Luca was shrewd as far as money-making was concerned, and he had neither mercy nor sympathy for the clients that handed their money over the blackjack tables—he cheated them ruthlessly and rarely ever gave anything back. This was not something Dominique had realized at a young age, though by the time she hit her teenage years this reality had been beaten into her through hardship after hardship. Her father was at least smart enough to realize that being the Don of a mafia family meant that his children should at least learn to protect themselves should anything arise, and eventually arise it did.

Dominique remembered sleeping in her bed, a pitcher of water sitting on her nightstand should she get thirsty in the middle of the night, and awakening to gunshots and the sounds of men screaming. Her older brother burst into her room while she was still in her nightgown, fumbling through the drawers of her dresser for her gun.

She remembered charging for the door—but her brother held her back, picked her up, opened the window and practically flung her out of it. She remembered falling to the dust hard on her bottom, but still clutching her weapon.

"Run!" her brother shouted at her—the last she heard from any of her family—and shut the window. Then her training kicked in. Her father had instructed her that under no circumstances was she to disobey orders from her brothers, especially if the family were under attack. So she picked up her gun and hitched up her nightgown and ran through the town, skirting the midnight shadows of silent buildings until she got to the town's edge and hid there behind a tall gate, crouching into the shadows and waiting. Waiting until some member of the family would get her as her father had said, but nobody ever came.

It had been a well-instrumented, thoroughly planned attack. The Di Luca family had reigned over the town since the first crash, and all that had ended in an efficient coup that had hardly lasted a few hours of the night. For three days Dominique hid, too afraid to come out of the alley shadows during the day and venturing out only at night. The bodies of her mother and her father had been removed from her house, but her brothers, her sisters, and the servants' remains still littered the floors. She grabbed a shirt and a pair of pants from her youngest brother Benedict, cut her hair, and left the town with a bottle of water and her gun.

And that was how Dominique Di Luca, barely thirteen years old and already orphaned, made her way from town to town, falling in with folk of the only type she knew, and set herself on a path that would eventually cross with one who wished to control the destiny of that sad, barren planet.

-----

The first thing he noticed when he stepped into the bar was the girl at the table in the corner. She was dressed in men's clothing, a simple shirt and pants, her long dusty trenchcoat lying over the seat opposite her. She was nursing a glass of whiskey silently, and by the way she was crouched in her seat Legato could tell that she was trying to melt into the shadows. She seemed rather satisfied with her anonymity, but that could have been that the moment the doors swung inward, all eyes had been drawn to him.

His powerful presence quieted the entire room, and the patrons of the saloon stared at him, their gazes sweeping his entire body, not sure whether to note the color of his hair or the fact that his coat was a spotless, undusted white.

_Return to your merriment._

Legato issued the silent command without so much as thinking, and the room went back its usual business. The buzz of laughter and talk resumed, and the person at the piano in the back went back his happy tune seemingly without missing a beat.

_There is nothing unusual about me._

He touched all their minds gracefully, and it was true, no one looked up at him or sensed anything peculiar about him at all as he walked past them. Except for, of course, the woman in the corner. Her mind he preserved, and she stared at him wide-eyed from the corner. She was tense, one arm at her side ready to pull out a gun she had strapped about the outside of her thigh.

"No need," Legato said simply as he stopped at her table and sat down casually. "You cannot harm me."

"Tell that to my gun," she said quietly and whipped it out, firing a shot at him smoothly without even a pause. No one in the bar seemed to notice the shot or the bullet that clattered to the table and rolled onto the floor. Legato bent over, picked it up, and placed it in front of her.

A man in a white apron approached him with a wide smile.

"A bowl of your best soup."

"Coming right up, sir," the man grinned with good nature, wiped his hands on his apron, and stumped back into the kitchen.

"As I said previously," Legato said, turning his attention back to the woman, as if he had deliberately ignored her while he placed his order, "you cannot harm me."

The woman stared at him, her eyes wide with terror, her mouth hanging open. She glanced to the side to look at the rest of the occupants of the bar, who were all looking away from her corner, and gave no indication of having noticed the gunshot, or that anything amiss was happening at their table.

"How?" she asked, agape, frightened. "Who are you?"

Legato allowed himself a small reassuring smile. He did not touch her mind, though he could have molded it to fit his needs. It would make things easier, he knew, but this he had learned from Knives: those who serve willingly are better faithful and loyal servants.

They would not worry him with the possibility of rebellion; their devotion would save him the effort of keeping them in line.

"I am someone very special," Legato answered smoothly.

"What are you?" the woman asked, still tense and defensive. She did not know how to defend against a man such as him, but she was prepared to do anything, no matter how useless it may prove to be. "Are you a bounty hunter?"

"Assuredly not. I came here seeking you. It seems you have quite a reputation already, Dominque Di Luca."

Her eyes narrowed. "How do you know who I am?"

"You have not yet fully mastered the ability to disappear in a crowd," Legato replied. "I followed you here from your last job."

"My last job?" Her eyes narrowed. "There were no witnesses. I killed him five miles outside the city."

"I was six miles outside the city, and I saw you."

"How?"

"That is a complex answer best saved for another time."

Dominique smirked nervously and kicked back in her seat, leaning it against the wall as she propped her boots on the table. "I have all night."

Legato returned her smile. "As do I. I have a job proposal for the both of us."

"And if I do not accept?"

Legato shrugged. "Then I will take my business elsewhere." But he did not speak of what that business that was, nor what her fate might be if she refused.

Dominique was not stupid, and she picked up on the subtlety of his words. Certainly an interesting man. Blue-haired, golden-eyed, speaking with a quiet, but nevertheless commanding voice. This man could lead an army, she realized. His composure, his very presence, commanded respect—that is, when one noticed him. He was different from everyone else, she thought, remembering the way the room had suddenly resumed as if unfrozen from time. He had done something. She fought not to frown. Here presented itself an elegant mystery in the form of a very tall and handsome man. And well, she was not the type to turn down an enigma wrapped in such a comely form.

"Very well, tell me of what this job is," she said, draining the last bit of her whiskey. This could prove to be something very interesting. She smiled and noticed the special way that he caught her eye every time she looked at him, but failed to notice the faint blush that rose to her cheeks every time she did so.

-----

Dominique was the first that he had found in a long while, and Legato did not miss the resemblance she might have held to someone who had once been very close to his heart. Like his long-dead twin, Dominique was thin and slender, a her build a female version of his own. She awakened memories in him, every time she was on the very edge of a smile. She could never smile a true smile the way his sister had, nor would she ever have her playfulness, but her hair was long and as dark as he remembered his twin's to be. It shone in the sun, and more than once he found himself wanting to touch it as old memories resurfaced.

It was the third time that Legato's hand had nearly shot out to reach for the very ends of those long strands that he finally brought himself under control. Ismay was dead, long dead, like the rest of his family and the town that he had grown up in. Dominique was and never would be his sister, so he put them both firmly out of his mind and resolved never to think about them in that fashion again. Dominique was to be merely a member of the Gung-ho Guns that Knives had ordered him to form. She could not bring his sister back to life, nor could she take Ismay's place. He had long survived without her, and the void of her role had already been filled by another.

Nevertheless, Legato found her company subtly enjoyable in the sense that he did not view her with as much contempt as he did the other human vermin that inhabited the planet. He found that she was intelligent and witty, but capable and serious. She was speedy in battle and stealthy in the jobs he and she performed.

She was a good find, Legato thought one night as he stayed awake, perched on the edge of a window and staring off into the night, wondering how his master fared. Knives would never speak to him on his trips, disdaining his contact with the people of the planet. The nights on the planet were cold, but Legato found that he rarely felt them so. The numbness in his limbs had begun at his feet, had spread to the tips of his fingers and crawled ever so slowly but surely to his heart. Now Legato counted the days he had left until he was numb all over, unable to feel the pain of the sands blowing against his skin—but also unable to feel Knives' touch, should he ever recover again and cast off his glass encasing. Legato vowed that he would see that day before the numbness took him entirely. Things were progressing at good speed. Dominique had already developed what could only be an attraction to him. He lifted the sexual tension from her mind easily, for it infested even her dreams, and from that alone he knew that she would serve him well, flawed though she may be.

Good, Legato thought as they finished a third job together. She will come when I call for her. They dumped the body of Septem's mayor in the desert outside the city, Dominique crouching over his body and ensuring that he was truly dead.

"I have to go now," Legato said simply as she rose after her inspection.

"What?" she looked surprised. "We've only been working together two weeks."

"I have other business to attend to, but I will return shortly." Legato reached out and touched a shoulder, a gesture he had predicted would elicit a positive response from the woman.

His prediction proved true as she blushed again, her heartbeat growing quicker. "I will send you a summons within the next few months," he told her seriously, his tone taking on a tender quality, "I want you to come."

"I will," she nodded. "I will come when you call me."

"Good," Legato smiled, his hand moving from her shoulder to her cheek. "Goodbye. We will see each other again, soon."

And he was gone to the next town the next day.

-----

The sound of the saxophone was smooth—like liquid it meshed with the bass, the piano, and it was oddly calming for Legato as he listened, sitting at the back of the lounge, his face hidden by the shock of blue hair which fell across it. There was some subtle magic being worked in the atmosphere, some dim complacency, some contentment that the band—with their fluid rhythms and the quiet song of the sax—was feeding to the audience, and immediately upon entering Legato had seen exactly why the Tom Cat Lounge was the most sought-after nightclub on the planet and why only the politically successful and the filthy rich were wealthy enough to even set foot inside the lobby.

The saxophonist was no mere musician, he was master of his art—manipulation and also as it was rumored, murder. He could see why the club's clients spent their time there night after night, the Tom Cat's lush and siren melodies a headier poison more potent than any alcohol, more addictive than even the most powerful of sedatives. There was euphoria in the music, such tranquility that the audience sat with untouched wine glasses at their tables; they sat and listened with their eyes closed and wished for the night never to end. Should the saxophonist have wished, he could have sent the entire crowd in the streets, crying, screaming, clutching their heads in pain. But the entire night, from early evening until the bar closed he was in control. He was the master of sound, and through that he effected a serenity on the bar the likes of which Legato had never before seen on the planet. The band played the melody but the saxophonist, whose name Legato lifted from the ambience—Midvalley—was the one who breathed peace into the plush interior of the lounge.

Legato listened, the magnitude of this man's power was wholly unlike anything he had ever encountered. Moreso than the other men he had come across and recruited, this was an ability that was almost like to his, that when harnessed would serve Knives better than all the murderers and outlaws he had gathered so far. Legato smiled though no expression crossed his face. He continued to sit at the back, watching the saxophonist intently, heedful of the fact that if he lost focus for one moment he might get drawn into the same mesmerizing trance that sat in the air like thick, fragrant smoke.

There was something about the way Midvalley played that made Legato raise an eyebrow, and it had taken him almost half the night to catch it—unusually late for him. It had been so subtle at first that Legato had almost missed it, almost let it pass by but then he had seen it again. For all the saxophone's beauty, the more he watched the more he realized that there was something missing in the notes that filled the room. This, Legato realized, was the one weakness in this dim, dream-filled lounge, the one weakness that would put Midvalley into his hands by the end of the week.

Legato waited until the band was done, until they packed up their instruments and the Tom Cat turned her lights off and tidied up for the night. He was waiting behind the building, his back against the wall when the back door opened and the band members spilled out, arms slung around shoulders as they walked home together exhausted but glad for another night's solid earnings.

Behind the main group one man stepped out last, well behind the other members. "I have a business proposal," Legato said smoothly when Midvalley was not yet two steps out the door. The rest of the band seemed not to hear and stumbled tiredly toward their homes.

Midvalley stopped and watched them go. He considered calling out to them but thought better of it. He'd noticed the man in white in the back, the only one the entire course of the night who had not succumbed to his song. Instinct told him this man was dangerous, but instinct also told him to hear him out.

"The band and I usually discuss any propositions," Midvalley said warily, turning around to regard the dim grey figure in the darkness of the alley. He leaned against the brick wall casually.

"This one is just for you."

"All right, I'm listening." Midvalley watched the lounge owner and manager leave, the door opening and shutting again, the men walking off lighting cigarettes as if they hadn't noticed anybody else at all. The owner usually at least said goodnight, but tonight, he hadn't even bothered to look in the direction of the two men with their backs to the dull grey brick.

"Leave the band," Legato said simply. "I have someone in need of your services."

Midvalley laughed. He recalled a particular legend of a ghost town far away that had been destroyed by a monster in the guise of a little boy with blue hair. There was something dangerously persuasive in the man's voice, and that kept Midvalley on his guard. "That doesn't sound very profitable to me."

Legato smiled. Midvalley couldn't see it, but he felt it. "I offer you something which cannot be bought with all the money in the world."

"Oh? And what's that?"

"Power. And a purpose."

Midvalley paused before he answered. "And what if I refuse?"

"Then you can stay here. And wait for the gods to come to you." Legato chuckled and he walked away, leaving Midvalley in the dark.

For the next week Legato went to the Tom Cat every night. And every night he sat in the back, one arm thrown about the back of the booth, a glass of wine in his hand and an unreadable expression on his face. Each and every night Midvalley failed to capture Legato, failed to draw him into the tranquil fantasy he bestowed so easily upon the rest of the Tom Cat's guests. Concentration like that—Midvalley reflected one night as he packed away his instrument—required a focus that was inhuman, almost divine.

On the seventh night since the mysterious blue-haired man had approached him, Midvalley took his beloved Sylvia and faced his defeat.

"I'll come with you," was all he said to Legato, who was waiting outside the back door, as if he'd known of Midvalley's decision all along.

"Very well," the blue-haired man replied and began walking, motioning for Midvalley to follow. "My master has summoned us."

"It's the dead of night!" Midvalley exclaimed, but that elicited very little response from Legato, who kept walking to the town's edge. Midvalley really hoped the man had arranged from some transport, because he was not going to walk all night in the desert. "Where are we going anyway?"

Legato stopped and turned around. "A relic of the past," he said, and Midvalley found that that was all he was going to get out of the man. Perhaps his life was now going to take a turn for the better. Perhaps it was going to take a turn for the worse.

-----

Legato had missed the hum of the ship, he had missed the artificial light, the aseptic smell of recycled oxygen. He had missed the feel of the ship's metal floors beneath his feet, solid and cold so unlike the soft sand of the planet which he despised. He had missed the glow of Knives and his great glass encasement, the soft light basking his skin with what Legato's mind interpreted as warmth, giving his blue hair silver highlights, like slivers of moonlight in a night sky.

Knives opened his eyes when Legato approached, an unreadable glint in his gaze.

"Master," Legato whispered, spreading his arms wide as he pressed his cheek against the glass and rested there, exhausted. Suddenly he convulsed, a burning pain shot into his body, traveling along every nerve, into limbs that Legato had long given up for numb. Legato froze in a silent scream, too frightened to even think or guess what he had done to earn his master's ire. All he could do was beg for forgiveness.

It seemed like an eternity before it was over, before he had fallen onto the floor in a heap, his forehead resting against metal too dark to even show him his pitiful reflection.

:Forgive me, Master: Legato whimpered, drawing shallow breaths into lungs where it hurt too much to breathe.

His answer was a caress so gentle it made him weep.

:Welcome home, my dearest Legato.:

_End Stars and Pieces_

* * *

**Author's note: **I think I narrowly missed the two year mark for how long this piece was on the backburner. My apologies to all the Knives/Legato fans out there for keeping you waiting. It's quite frightening to think of how long I've been working on this piece. I really do care a great deal for this story and I've poured a lot of myself into it. It will be completed someday. I promise. Even if it's 10 years from now, eventually I will see this through to the end. 

That said, I might have waited a little bit too long to release this, because Nightow has already written Legato's backstory (I really, really like how he did it and how there are some small parts that share similarities with what I created), so I suppose this may be considered an AU. Since the manga covers such a longer timescale than I originally planned for this piece, I've decided that this work will follow the TV series' continuity. That means that characters such as Elendira and Livio will not make an appearance. Midvalley, who was recruited by Knives himself in the manga has actually joined under Legato here. Events that happen in the manga will not appear. This was how I originally envisioned the story, so I feel compelled to continue the story as I originally (albeit rather haphazardly) planned.

Thank you all very much for your patience.


End file.
